i 




ALFRED LORD TENNYSON 



TENNYSON'S 

GARETH AND LYNETTE 

LANCELOT AND ELAINE 

AND THE PASSING 

OF ARTHUR 




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» 



Edited 
With Introduction and Notes 

by 
WILLIS BOUGHTON, Ph.D. 

Teacher of English in Erasmus Hall High School 
New York City 








BOSTON, U.S.A. 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

2H;e ^tljenaetun tyvtss 

1903 





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THE L 

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TWO COf*«$ H ^CfctVSJ | 

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COPT 1c 



Copyright, 1903 
By WILLIS BOUGHTON 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






PREFACE 

The three idylls included in this volume are those 
selected as a substitute for The Princess for the College 
Entrance Examinations of 1906 and thereafter. 

The aim of the editor has been threefold : to edit fully 
without the appearance of pedantry ; to give the pupils such 
an introduction to the Arthurian romances as seems neces- 
sary for a complete understanding of these special idylls ; 
to make the learner a sympathetic reader of Tennyson. 
The text of the Globe edition of the poet's works has been 
followed in all respects excepting in the spelling of such 
words as color, honor, etc. In annotating the Century Dic- 
tionary has been used for definitions. The editor has made 
frequent use of Malory's Morte Darthur whenever a quota- 
tion would make a passage clearer. He is also indebted to 
Dr. J. Scott Clark's A Study of English and American Poets 
for some short quotations used in the Introduction. 

In the matter of interpretation a paper in the Contem- 
porary Review for January, 1870, and one in the same 
review for May, 1873, were found helpful ; but the editor is 
most largely indebted to the present Lord Tennyson, whose 
Memoir of his father is an invaluable aid in a study of the 
Idylls. This Memoir was prepared largely under the eye of 
the poet. It contains a history of almost every poem and 
interpretations of many. The explanation of the allegory of 
the Idylls, as given in the Introduction to this volume, is 
quoted by Lord Tennyson as that of his father. 



vi PREFACE 

In order to interpret the music and the spirit of a poet it 
is necessary to understand his art form. Tennyson was a 
master of blank verse. The editor has therefore given 
several pages to a discussion of the mechanism of Tenny- 
son's blank verse. In his definitions of the kinds of poetry 
and in his classification of the poems mentioned he has 
been to some extent guided by Dr. Gummere's Handbook 
of Poetics. The method of scansion suggested, however, is 
his own, formed from ideas gathered from many sources 
after a long experience as a teacher of poetry. Teachers 
will find that a thorough understanding of some such 
method will aid the learner in the appreciation of poetry. 

W. B. 

Erasmus Hall High School, 
Brooklyn, Nov. i, 1903. 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION PAGE 

Alfred Lord Tennyson ix 

The Poetry of Tennyson xvi 

The " Idylls of the King " xxiii 

Tennyson's Blank Verse xxx 

References xxxviii 

Chronological Table xl 

Knights of the Round Table xliv 

IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Gareth and Lynette i 

Lancelot and Elaine . . 49 

The Passing of Arthur 95 

NOTES 

Gareth and Lynette in 

Lancelot and Elaine 121 

The Passing of Arthur 126 



INTRODUCTION 



ALFRED LORD TENNYSON 

" If a man were permitted to make all the. ballads of a 
nation, he need not care who should make the laws." For 
more than fifty years Alfred Tennyson wrote songs for the 
English-speaking peoples, and his poetry had an ever- 
increasing effect on the laws and on the manners and cus- 
toms of his countrymen. With the inspiration of a seer 
or prophet he outlined a poet's solution of political, social, 
and moral questions, and his persuasive utterances produced 
action and led to permanent reform. 

Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby in Lincolnshire. 
His father, the Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, as the elder 
of two sons, was naturally the heir to an estate called 
Bayons Manor ; but through some caprice of fortune he 
had been disinherited. The condition of the 
Born ^ gus 6 ' family was thus one of forced content with a 
fairly good income from three church livings, 
— Somersby, Benniworth, and Great Grimsby. The parson- 
age was not a lonely place, however, for in less than four- 
teen years there came into it twelve children, — eight boys 
and four girls. The firstborn died in infancy, leaving Alfred 
as the third boy in this family of eleven, all of whom lived 
to an advanced age. 

At seven years of age Alfred was sent to a grammar 
school at Louth, where he remained for four years under 
" a tempestuous, flogging master of the old stamp." He 



x INTRODUCTION 

had a sensitive poetic nature, and his companions were 

rough and even cruel ; so these were unhappy years. Then 

he returned to his home to study with his 

Ten education arly ^ atrier > wno was an excellent language scholar. 
Thus passed the formative years of his life, 
with his ten brothers and sisters, the oldest thirteen and 
the youngest a mere babe. The boys played at tourna- 
ment when they were in the field. In the house they wrote 
stories and composed verses to be read at the dinner table. 
Even then, it is remembered, Alfred was the most expert, 
his stories being often literary and dramatic. It was a 
poetic family. The father, who wrote poetry, was a severe 
though sympathetic critic ; and under his direction Alfred 
received lessons that tended to shape his style and improve 
his art. At eight years of age he wrote blank verse ; before 
he was thirteen he had written an epic poem of six thousand 
lines. Such was the merit of his verses that his father 
exclaimed, " If Alfred die, one of the greatest poets will have 
gone." The climax of this period was reached when the 
volume of poems entitled Poems of Two Brothers appeared. 
It was, however, the work of three brothers, Frederick, 
Charles, and Alfred Tennyson. Alfred was then eighteen 
years old. 

Frederick, the oldest living brother, already at Trinity 
College, Cambridge, had won a university medal for Greek 
odes when Charles and Alfred entered. Charles soon 
secured a scholarship by the beauty of his translations. 
Alfred about the same time won the Chancellor's prize 
medal for original poems, his subject being Timbuctoo. The 
strong personality of the poet attracted attention. He was 
six feet tall, broad chested, strong limbed, with deep eyes 
and an ample forehead crowned with dark wavy hair. Yet 
his shyness was such that he sought a substitute when 



INTRODUCTION xi 

summoned to read his prize poem at Commencement. As 

a member of a society of college men called the "Apostles, " 

however, this shyness left him, and he was 
Tennyson at Cam- . ,_ _ . 

bridge, February, always ready to recite ballads of his own com- 

1828, to February, position or even to extemporize verses when 
called on to entertain. " Alfred Tennyson was 
our hero, the great hero of our day," said Fanny Kemble, 
the celebrated actress, who used to visit her brother who 
also was at Cambridge. In this society of the "Apostles " 
Tennyson formed lifelong friendships with Milnes (afterward 
Lord Houghton), Trench (afterward Archbishop), Alford 
(afterward Dean of Canterbury), Merivale (afterward Dean 
of Ely), and Hallam, whom he immortalized in In Memo- 
riam. In the meetings of this society were discussed all the 
leading social and political questions of the day. Tennyson 
preached the onward progress of liberty, while he opposed 
revolutionary license. In the summer of 1830 there was 
an insurrection in Spain against the tyranny of the king. 
Tennyson and Hallam, sympathizing with the insurgents, 
journeyed to the Pyrenees with money to assist the revo- 
lutionists. They succeeded in delivering the money and 
in escaping the watchfulness of the Spanish authorities. 
Thus he was willing to act as well as to preach. In this 
year also appeared his volume of Poems chiefly Lyrical. 
The next year he left Cambridge to begin his life work 
as poet. 

One month after Tennyson's departure from the Univer- 
sity his father died, and the care of a large family fell on 
the young poet, though there was an income 
T manhood in sufficiently great to enable them all to live 

comfortably. For nearly twenty years he 
studied his art; at times severely criticised, at others receiv- 
ing his due reward of praise. He was struggling to become 



xii INTRODUCTION 

the master poet, and full recognition came in the end. The 
year 1850 is memorable for three events in the poet's life, 
— the publication of In Memoriam, his marriage, and the 
laureateship. 

At Cambridge Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam, and 
the two became warm friends. Though they were com- 
petitors in the race for the Chancellor's prize, this made 
no difference in their friendship. After Tennyson left the 

University, Hallam became a frequent vis- 
"inMemoriam." itor at the Tennyson home, and there he met 

Alfred's sister, Emilia, to whom he became 
betrothed. Hallam was the most sympathetic critic of 
Tennyson's poems, and verses seldom passed to the pub- 
lic until they had received the friend's sanction. They 
twice visited the continent together, and they were equally 
concerned in the social and political conditions of the 
time, meditating and debating great plans of reform. Sud- 
denly the friendship was severed; Hallam died at Vienna 
on September 15, 1833. He was there with his father. 
" When Mr. Hallam returned from his daily walk, he saw 
Arthur asleep as he supposed upon the couch ; a blood 
vessel near the brain had suddenly burst ; it was not sleep 
but death." A letter from Arthur's uncle announced the 
sad news to Alfred, and the course of the poet's life was 
changed. In the next two years he produced a small vol- 
ume of poems, and in 1847 The Princess appeared; but the 
poet was brooding over the death of his friend and over 
all that death means. In 1850 his great memorial poem, 
In Memoria?n, was printed. Stopford Brooke calls it " the 
most complete, most rounded to a polished sphere, of the 
longer poems of Tennyson." This poem not only fixed 
his rank as a poet, but gave him ready money and income 
sufficient to enable him to consider the subject of marriage. 



INTRODUCTION xiil 

Tennyson's brother Charles was married in 1836. Alfred 

walked into the church with the bride's younger sister, 

Emily Sarah Sellwood, a slender, beautiful girl of seventeen. 

They had met six years before, but this second meeting 

convinced Tennyson that his feeling toward her was more 

than that of friendship. Very soon an engagement existed 

between them, but marriage was deferred be- 

Tennyson's cause of lack of funds. Tennyson's income 

marriage. J 

was small. He and his family lost heavily 

in an investment. So far away did marriage seem that the 

poet generously gave the woman he loved her freedom. 

Even with his longings for a better income, when, in 1845, 

Sir Robert Peel secured for him an annual pension of ^200, 

he accepted it on his own conditions, writing : " I have done 

nothing slavish to get it. I never even solicited for it by 

myself or thro' others. It was all done for me without a 

word or hint from me, and Peel tells me I need not by it be 

fettered in the public expression of any opinion I choose 

to take up." When, however, In Memoriam was printed, 

the poet found himself with a bank account of ^300 and the 

promise of a regular income from his poems sufficient to 

warrant his marriage. On June 13, 1850, Alfred Tennyson 

and Emily Sellwood became husband and wife. " The peace 

of God came into my life before the altar when I w r edded 

her," he said in after life; and on another occasion to some 

of his most intimate friends he remarked : " I have known 

many women who were excellent, one in one way, another 

in another way, but this woman is the noblest woman I have 

ever known." The wedding was followed very closely by 

the laureateship. 

Wordsworth had been poet laureate, but he died in 1850. 

In November the appointment came to Tennyson, owing, 

it is asserted, "chiefly to Prince Albert's admiration for 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

In Memoriamy Upon receiving the letter announcing that 
he was the choice of the queen for the vacant laureateship 
he wrote two letters, one declining and one accepting, deter- 
mining to rely on the advice of friends in the 
laureate! matter of mailing the letters. " I have no 

passion for courts, but a great love of privacy/ ' 
he wrote to one. He was advised by them not to decline it. 
This office added about ^"ioo to his annual income. From 
this time he continued in easy circumstances, with an ever- 
increasing revenue. 

In 1853 the annual income from Tennyson's books was 
^■500. Two years later he purchased the Farringford house 
on the Isle of Wight. This became his permanent home, 
though in 1868 he built a summer house at Aldworth in 
Surrey. Many honors now came to him. In 1855 the 
University of Oxford conferred on him the 

SSerity. 8 de s ree of D - c - L - In a few y ears he had the 

honor to decline the lord rectorship of Glas- 
gow University. He had not only kept the friends of his 
early life, but made new friendships. Prince Albert and 
Gladstone visited him at Farringford. The Duke of Argyll 
became a firm friend, and the living authors such as Brown- 
ing, Carlyle, Ruskin, Thackeray, Fitzgerald, Huxley, Bage- 
hot, and Harrison boasted and valued his companionship. 
In 1873 Tennyson received a letter from Mr. Gladstone 
offering a baronetcy from the queen. In answer he wrote, 
" I had rather we should remain plain Mr. and Mrs. and 
that, if it were possible, the title should first be assumed by 
our son." This did not seem wise and so passed by. Again 
the next year the offer was renewed through Mr. Disraeli, 
who was then premier. Tennyson still insisted on asking 
that the honor be reserved for his son, but as this was con- 
trary to all precedent, the baronetcy passed by him again. 



INTRODUCTION xv 

Nine years later, through Mr. Gladstone the queen made 
an offer of a peerage. This time the poet was approached 
with much diplomacy, Mr. Gladstone first suggesting the 
idea to Tennyson's son. It was while the Tennysons and 
Gladstones were on a voyage. The son watched his oppor- 
tunity and opened the subject. Then Mr. Gladstone came 
and urged the matter on the poet. Tennyson took two or 
three days to consider the offer ; then he said to his son, " By 
Gladstone's advice I have consented to take the peerage, but 
for my own part I shall regret my simple name all my life." 
About this matter Mr. Gladstone wrote the poet's son, " I 
think that by it we certainly succeeded in decorating the 
House of Lords, and I think your father will also be pleased 
with having given, as I believe, some real pleasure to the 
Queen in the grant of this honor." When Tennyson took 
his seat in the House of Lords he refused to sit with either 
party. " He felt that he must be free to vote for that which 
seemed to him best for the empire." The first bill for which 
he voted was the Extension of the Franchise. This he 
held to be a "matter of justice," and he always acted on 
that principle. 

Tennyson was in his seventy-fifth year when he attained 
to the peerage ; still he was a very active man. His political 

utterances were not in the form of speeches to 
Tennyson's last . . . . . 

years and his the lords, but in the form of stirring lyrics, — 

death, October 6, hi s fi rs t as a p eer being his poem Freedom, 
1892 . 

published in Macmillarf s Magazine for Decem- 
ber, 1884. About this time, when the Franchise Bill was 
under discussion, he wrote to Gladstone, who was premier : 

Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act 
Of steering, for the river here, my friend, 
Parts in two channels, moving to one end — 
This goes straight forward to the cataract : 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

That streams about the bend ; 

But tho' the cataract seem the nearer way, 

Whate'er the crowd on either bank may say, 

Take thou the " bend," 'twill save thee many a day. 

Tennyson enjoyed the peerage for eight years, working, 
planning, writing. In his eighty-first year he wrote Crossing 
the Bar. One October day while passing from Aldworth to 
Farringford he heard the " moaning of the bar," and th? 
poem was written. His wish that it be placed at the end 
of all editions of his poems has been observed. When hi 
died, a life that had been all music passed away in song ; 
singing, he " crost the bar." 



THE POETRY OF TENNYSON 

De Quincey mentions two elements of literary style, — 
matter and manner. Buffon's well-known definition, " Styl* 

is of the man himself/' adds a third, and i 
Tennyson's style, very important one, — the personality or ind - 

viduality of the writer. These three elements 
may easily be found in the style of Tennyson. 

As to his matter, Stopford Brooke says that "he wrote ct 
the everyday loves and duties of men and women; of th t 

aspirations and trials which are common to a 1 
(a) His matter. ages and classes." Tennyson's son, Hallai , 

relates how the poet was accustomed to mei t 
Carlyle, Thackeray, Dickens, Huxley, and other thoughtfi 1. 
men of all professions and of all degrees of attainment. 
Their talk would touch largely on politics, philosophy, an 1 
especially on the new speculations rife on every side. Upo i 
projects of reform or of the great movements of philar - 
thropy he reflected much. This reflection furnished th* 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

matter for his poetry; this matter he molded into art form. 
The Princess offered a poet's solution of the woman ques- 
tion as it stood nearly sixty years ago. Locksley Hall repre- 
sented " young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its 
yearnings. " Tennyson called In Memoriam " The Way of 
the Soul/' and Maud a " Drama of the Soul " set in a land- 
scape glorified by love. But the matter of Tennyson's 
poetry is spiritualized by the personality of the man. 

There must have been something great in Tennyson the 

man. The queen received him cordially from time to time. 

The Prince Consort, the princesses, Gladstone, 

(b) Hl aiity rS ° n " Huxlev > and the Duke of Al "gy 11 were visitors 
at Farringford. A few of the elements of the 
poet's individuality have been noted by his critics. The 
great French writer, Taine, says, " Without being a pedant, 
he is moral.- . . . He speaks of God and the soul nobly, 
tenderly, without ecclesiastical prejudice." Canon Farrar 
says, " Tennyson, though he had his moods of sorrow and 
perplexity, was an optimist, who had achieved his right to 
optimism by the fighting down of despair and doubt." Pro- 
fessor Dowden says Mr. Tennyson " has a strong dignity 
and efficiency of law, and law understood in its widest mean- 
ing. Energy nobly controlled, and ordered activity, delight 
his imagination. Violence, extravagance, immoderate force, 
the swerving from appointed ends, revolt, — these are with 
Mr. Tennyson the supreme manifestations of evil." And 
Dr. Van Dyke adds, " His music must thrill us with the con- 
viction that the humblest child of man has a duty, an ideal, 
a destiny." Throughout his life he allied himself against the 
cry of " Art for art's sake " ; he was " a poet with a message." 
From his earliest attempts Tennyson endeavored to culti- 
vate the highest art of poetic expression. He was accustomed 
to modify the old adage so that it read, Poeta nascitur et fit 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

(the poet is both born and made). Some of his poems were 
subjected to many changes and several complete revisions* 

It seemed to be the poet's aim to paint his 
(c) His manner, scenes vividly, to express his thoughts clearly 

and precisely, to adorn his pages with jewels 
of thought and figures of beauty, and to give the whole the 
color of rich romance. There are critics of note, however, 
who have charged Tennyson with an over-ornateness. Taine 
says, " He gave them [his poems] too much adornment and 
polishing ; he seemed like an Epicurean in style as well as in 
beauty." On the other hand, Bagehot asserts that "Tenny- 
son has painted with pure art." Although his style is beset 
with mannerisms offensive to some, although he reveled in 
alliteration and delighted in compound words three or four 
deep, such as " one-day-seen " and " nine-years-fought-for," 
Tennyson became so skilled in the use of ornamentation 
that criticism was silenced. The poet proved himself supe- 
rior to his critics in artistic judgment and in taste. His own 
dictum about literary work was, "An artist should get his 
workmanship as good as he can, and make his work as per- 
fect as possible. A small vessel built on fine lines is likely 
to float further down the stream of time than a big raft." 
So he strove to make every verse he composed as artistically 
correct as he was able to make it. 

The Greeks recognized three kinds of poetry, — lyric, epic, 

and dramatic. Tennyson tried all three. In his early life 

the lyric element predominated ; next " the melody of the 

lyric is wedded to the sentiment and picture 

Thre poe k S ds of of the id y 1L " The id y 11 mer S es int0 the e P ic - 

There are, too, the mock heroic, The Princess, 
and the monodrama, Maud, with their beautiful inter-lyrics ; 
and these lead to the drama. First, then, as a lyric poet. 



INTRODUCTION xix 

Lyric poetry is the artistic expression of the sentiments 

and emotions, that is, it is subjective. The poet "lets his 

illumined being o'errun " in music and song. The action 

of the lyric is usually rapid ; the time quick ; 

Tennyson as a fa yerse j jf musical The t - f 

lyric poet. r 

to invent forms. Many of Tennyson's lyric 

measures are wholly his own ; while others have been so 
treated by him as to make them virtually new. Among 
those which the poet himself admired were that of The Daisy, 
some of the anapestic movements in Maud, and the " long- 
rolling rhythm of his ode To Virgil." Alfred Tennyson's 
contribution to the volume of verse entitled Poems of Two 
Brothers was largely lyric. At Cambridge, in certain college 
rooms, he would often declaim his own poems and even 
"improvise verses by the score, full of lyrical passion." In 
his first volume, Poems chiefly Lyrical, " the variety of his 
lyrical measures " was noted. In the volume of 1842 appeared 
St. Agnes' Eve and Sir Galahad, which Stedman pronounces 
the "purest and highest of all his lyrical pieces." The Talk- 
ing Oak of this same volume is called the " nonpareil of 
sustained lyrics in quatrain verse." Throughout his long 
lifetime the lyric fires continued to burn intensely ; for nearly 
every year gave the world new songs and ballads. What 
he furnished is usually described in the superlative degree. 
Landor called his Hands all Round " incomparably the best 
(convivial) lyric in the language." The spirit of English 
freedom and patriotism breathes through such songs as Lore 
thou thy land, Of old sat Freedom on the heights, England and 
America in 1782, and The Charge of the Light Brigade. The 
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington is the most ambi- 
tious of the patriotic lyrics. Stedman says, " Few will deny 
that, taken together, the five melodies, — As through the land, 
Sweet and low, The splendor falls on castle walls, LLo?ne they 



xx INTRODUCTION 

brought her warrior dead, and Ask me no more! — that these 
constitute the finest group of songs produced in our century" ; 
and he adds, "the Bugle Song seems to many the most 
perfect English lyric since the time of Shakespeare." The 
great elegy, In Memoriam, is a chain of lyrics, and Maud 
is more lyric than dramatic. Crossing the Bar, written in 
his eighty-first year, shows the lyric power still unimpaired. 
In all this work he was cheered and encouraged by Lady 
Tennyson, who furnished the musical setting for several of 
his songs and the inspiration for some of his idylls. The 
idyll, indeed, was the stepping-stone from the lyric to the epic. 
The word " idyll" means "a little picture." Quiet and 
homely scenes are fitting subjects for this kind of poetry ; for 
" the idyll must be simple, calm, more concerned with situa- 
tion than with action." Tennyson's short narrative poems 

giving pictures of simple country life are 
The idyll. idylls, and he wrote many of this kind. The 

Gardener's Daughter, The Miller's Daughter, 
and Godiva are purely idyllic pieces. In Tennyson's poetry 
there is no dividing line between the lyric and the idyll and 
the idyll and the epic. The Brook is an idyll containing an 
inter-lyric ; The Princess is a mock heroic poem containing 
several lyrics and one idyll. 

Epic poetry, Dr. Gummere says, is that kind in which the 
poet himself narrates a story as if he were present. It is 
simple in construction, yet it admits of the episode and the 
dialogue. The meter of the lyric may vary with the impulses 
of thought; that of the epic must be uniform. The lyric 

deals with the present ; the grand epic with 
Te ^ c s s on ' s the past. The epic enforces no moral although 

it may hold one in solution. Some of Tenny- 
son's idylls are epics. Such ballads as The Revenge, The 
Defence of Lucknow, and The Voyage of Maeldune are good 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

examples of the ballad-epic. Enoch Arden and Dora repre- 
sent another kind of epic, — the simple, touching tale. Tenny- 
son's nearest approach to a grand epic was his Idylls of the 
King. A friend of the poet called this work " Epylls of the 
King." " According to him they were little epics (not idylls) 
woven into an epical unity." Still the Idylls of the King 
are idyllic ; they " are full of little pictures which show that 
Tennyson has studied nature at first-hand, and that he 

understood how to catch and reproduce the 
T the Khf ^ ,0f most: fleeting and delicate expressions of her 

face." This poem was the growth of nearly 
half a century. It was late in life when Tennyson turned to 
the drama as the medium of art expression. 

"The drama is imitated human action." Dramatic poetry 
partakes of the nature of both the epic and the lyric; it 

deals with the past, but represents past actions 
Dramatic poetry, as actually occurring before our eyes. The 

basis, then, is epic, but there are the lyric 
sentiment, action, and fire. Characters live and act before 
us and speak in our presence. Thus the poetry is heightened 
by the varying situations. Tennyson was sixty-five years of 
age when his first play was published. Queen Mary, Harold, 
and Becket form what he called his " historical trilogy." The 
poet's idea was to portray the making of England : Harold 

reproduces the great conflict between Danes, 

Tennyson's Saxons, and Normans ; Becket deals with the 

dramas . 

struggle between the Crown and the Church ; 
Queen Mary represents the rise of the individual into freedom. 
Other dramas are The Foresters, The Cup, and The Falcon. 
The value of his dramatic work as compared with his other 
poetry has been questioned. 

In Maud, locksley Hall, and other pieces, Tennyson used 
the monodrama, — a form very popular with Browning. When 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

he undertook the drama proper he was prepared for adverse 
criticism. There have, however, been given two estimates 
of his dramatic work, as there are two kinds of modern 
drama, — the drama of action and the drama of living. In 
the one the characters move before our eyes 

^ramatisT * and in an artincial wa Y act their little P ar ts ; 
in the other the characters live before our 
eyes. The contrast is felt when Shakespeare's Othello is 
compared with Browning's Luria. Othello talks and acts ; 
Luria says little, acts little, but lives the hero. Of course on 
the stage the drama of action is the more popular. Tenny- 
son's were rather dramas of living. One critic, therefore, 
says that he is not a true dramatic poet because he has the 
limitations of his day and generation ; he is romantic and 
not dramatic. Another says: " Tennyson is one of the great 
voices of modern times. He is thoroughly penetrated with 
the spirit of the era, and his methods are throughout such 
as that spirit dictates. His plays are not so much the 
delineation of great deeds as they are the studies of the 
motives which lie behind those deeds. . . . Green, the his- 
torian of England, says, 'All my researches into the annals 
of the twelfth century have not given me so vivid a concep- 
tion of the character of Henry II. as was embodied in Tenny- 
son's Beckett " Dr. Van Dyke has expressed the opinion 
that " it is not too daring to predict that the day is coming 
when the study of Shakespeare's historical plays will be 
reckoned no more important to an understanding of English 
history than the study of Tennyson's trilogy ! " 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 



THE "IDYLLS OF THE KING" 

Tennyson's Idylls of the King has been called the " Epic 
of Arthur." The Grand Epic may deal with the mythology 
or the religion of a people, or it may relate the legends that 
gather about the history of the past. Milton chose for his 
great epic the theme of " man's first disobedience " and the 
bringing of " Death into the world," a subject that deeply 
concerned every human being and enabled him to write 
a Grand Epic ; for a work of great art must have a great 
subject. Tennyson, combining the legendary with the myth- 
ical, embodied in his poem a Christian ideal that makes it 
also a Grand Epic. The Epic of Arthur is a double allegory ; 
first, as " shadowing Sense at war with Soul " ; next, as a 
poem of "The Year and the Soul." 

As the Epic of Arthur the poem is legendary. Arthur was 
a king of Britain who flourished in that dark 

The ' < Epic of _ ° - . . , 

Arthur." an d stormy period when, the protecting arm of 

Rome having been withdrawn, the weakened 
people were left subject to the inroads of the invading Saxon. 
In this struggle of Christian against pagan, King Arthur, by 
uniting the native kings and barons in a confederacy, was 
able to stand successfully against the incoming Northmen 
and even to drive them back. Such was his fame that suc- 
ceeding generations came to hold him in great veneration. 
As time passed, legends gathered around the name of the 
great Arthur. For two or three centuries these grew by 
oral repetition, until, after the eighth century, a monk named 
Nennius put in Latin a written account of the wars of Arthur, 
naming the twelve great battles which this king fought and 
won. In written form this account passed from hand to 
hand, the stories growing in number and in interest. In one 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

form or another the legends of Arthur found their way across 

the English Channel. The trouveres of northern France 

chanted the old ones and created new. The stories became 

popular at the court of the Plantagenet kings, eventually 

forming what has been called the "Arthurian 

The -Arthurian Cycle of Romance." Then through many 
Cycle of J . & J 

Romance." hands they passed into Anglo-Saxon and into 

modern English. 
The edition of the Arthurian legends which most influenced 
Tennyson was that of Sir Thomas Malory, a knight of the 

fifteenth century, whose Morte Darthur was 
^Zihur.- ^ Polished in 1485. He seems to have added 

the story of Gareth and Lynette. Though he 
added little else, "he selected the most interesting things 
with an almost invariable sureness, though there are one or 
two omissions ; and he omitted the less interesting parts 
with a sureness to which there are hardly any exceptions at 
all. He grasped, and this is his great and saving merit as 
an author, the one central fact of the story — that in the 
combination of the Quest of the Grail with the loves of 
Lancelot and Guinevere, lay the kernel at once and the 
conclusion of the whole matter." Tennyson, however, has 
made the old legends his own, "restored the idealism, and 
infused into them a spirit of modern thought and an ethical 
significance, setting his characters in a rich and varied 

landscape ; as indeed otherwise their archaic 

Preparation for stories would not have appealed to the modern 
writing the t% n ' * 1 i- 

" idylls. >> world at large. In 1848 the poet, brooding 

over the Arthurian romances, made a tour of 

Cornwall, and eight years later, accompanied by his wife, he 

visited Wales, where he wandered over the mountains and 

viewed the scenes so wonderfully reproduced in his verse 

pictures. 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

With Tennyson himself the Idylls were a growth of nearly 
half a century. A great poem comes from brooding, and 
through all these years the brooding process continued. As 
early as 1832 the poet began to draw on the Arthurian 
legends for his inspiration to song. First there appeared 
the lyric, The Lady of Shalott, which is only another ver- 
sion of Lancelot and Elaiiie. The 1842 volume contained 
Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, and Aforte 
d' Arthur (which forms a part of his present T^he Passing 
of Arthur). The poet was just experimenting; it was not 
till 1859 tnat ne published the first installment, Enid, Vivien y 

Elaine, Guinevere. Then followed a rest of ten 
the 6 '^iTns °' ' y ears > after which (1869) a volume appeared 

containing The Coming of Arthur, The Holy 
Grail, Pelleas and Ettarre, and The Passing of Arthur. In 
187 1 The Last Tournament was privately printed and then 
published in the Contemporary Review; republished with 
Gareth and Lynette in 1872. These with Balin and Balan 
(published in 1885) make up the twelve books. 

The complete epic as finally arranged consists of a Dedica- 
tion to Prince Albert, an Epilogue To the Queen, and the Idylls 
in three parts, — The Co??iing of Arthur, The Pound Table, 
and The Passing of Arthur. The Pound Table consists of ten 
idylls, the names of which have already been mentioned. 
The main action of the plot is the criminal love of 

Lancelot and Guinevere working to overthrow 
The plot. the unsuspecting goodness of King Arthur. 

While each of the idylls of The Round Table 
has an interest of its own, every one bears upon this main 
action, and by suggestion, by assertion, and by foreshadow- 
ing helps to work the solution of the problem of virtue. 
Though virtue seems to fail, the poet has given his own 
interpretation to his theme in the words : 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

" The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 

And God fulfils himself in many ways, 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. . 



As for the meaning of the poem, Lord Tennyson would 
affirm, " Poetry is like shot-silk with many glancing colors. 
Every reader must find his own interpretation according to 
his ability, and according to his sympathy with the poet. ,, 

Readers who have most sympathy with the 
aiie^ 16 P oet nave f oun d in the Idylls of the King a 

double allegory ; it is an epic of "The Year," 
and also a poem of " Sense at war with Soul." 

As we read the poem, " we go from the marriage of spring 
in The Coming of Arthur, when the blossom of the May seems 
to spread its perfume over the whole scene, to the early 

summer of the honeysuckle in Gareth, the 
^Th^Year " quickly following mowing-season of Geraint, 

and the sudden summer-thunder-shower of 
Vivien — thence to the full summer of Elaine, with oriel 
casements standing wide for heat — and later, to the sweep 
of equinoctial storms and broken weather of The Holy Grail. 
Then come the autumn roses and branches of Pelleas, and 
in The Last Toumame?it the close autumn-tide, with all its 
slowly mellowing avenues, through which we see Sir Tristram 
riding to his doom. In Guinevere the creeping mists of com- 
ing winter pervade the picture, and in The Passing of Arthur 
we come to deep winter on the frozen hills : — and the end 
of all, on the year's shortest day (taken as the end of the 
year) — that day when the great light of heaven burned at 
his lowest in the rolling year. The King, who first appears 
on the night of the New Year, disappears into the dawning 
light of the new sun bringing the New Year, and thus the 
whole action of the poem is comprised precisely within the 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

limits of the one principal and ever-recurring cycle of time." 

In Gareth the joy of life " lives in the eternal youth of 

goodness. But in the later idylls the allowed sin not only 

poisons the spring of life in the summer, but spreads its 

poison through the whole community." 

" If epic unity is looked for in the Idylls, we find it not 

in the wrath of an Achilles, nor in the wanderings of Ulysses, 

but in the unending war of humanity in all 

The epic of ages, — the world-wide war of Sense and 

1 ' Sense at war _, , .,,,.....,, . . . . . 

with soul." Soul, typified in individuals, with the subtle 

interaction of character upon character, the 

central dominant figure being the pure, generous, tender, 

brave, human-hearted Arthur. . . . The great resolve [to 

ennoble and spiritualize mankind] is kept so long as all 

work in obedience to the highest and holiest law within 

them." A single sin intrudes and is allowed to remain; 

but "in some natures, even among those who would rather 

die than doubt, it breeds suspicion and want of trust in God 

and man. Some royal souls are wrought to madness against 

the world. Others, and some among the highest intellects, 

become the slaves of the evil which is at first half-disdained. 

Tender natures sink under the blight; that which is of 

the highest is then working their death. And in some, as 

faith declines, religion turns from practical goodness to 

superstition. 

" This madness has come on us for our sin. 

" These seek relief in selfish spiritual excitement, not 
remembering that man's duty is to forget self in the service 
of others, and to let visions come and go, and that so only 
will they see the Holy Grail. In the idyll of Pelleas and 
Ettarre selfishness has turned to open crime ; it is the break- 
ing of the storm ; nevertheless Pelleas still honors his sacred 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

vow to the king and spares the wrong-doers. Whereas in 
The Last Tournament the wrong-doer suffers his doom, and 
is cloven through the brain. We have here the deadly proof 
of the kinship of all willful sin in murder following adultery 
in closest relation of cause and consequence, — the prelude 
of the final act of the tragedy which culminates in the tem- 
porary triumph of evil, the confusion of moral order, closing 
in the great Battle of the West." 

" The whole poem is the dream of man coming into prac- 
tical life and ruined by one sin. Birth is a mystery and 
death is a mystery, and in the midst lies the table-land of 
life, and its struggles and performances. It is not the his- 
tory of one man or one generation but of a whole cycle of 
generations." 

Gareth and Lynette represents spring and the springtime 
of life. The young man in strength and hope and ambi- 
tion seeks knighthood. After attaining this, 
l ^ette*" ^ e * s g rante d his first quest when nature is 

as full of life as the sharp-tongued Lynette. 
The interpretation of the incident of the "blooming boy" 
is twofold : Gareth found " Love instead of Death " ; and 
" who knows whether indeed Life be Death and Death 
Life ? " The allegorical interpretation is, " Death, though 
apparently the most formidable antagonist of all, turns out 
to be no real foe, and his fall ushers in the happier day 
from underground." 

Lancelot and Elaine is seventh in the order of final arrange- 
ment of the Ldylls. The poison of the one sin at Arthur's 
court has spread and we see " the piteous early death of inno- 
cence and hope resulting from it." Littledale says: "This 
is perhaps the most idyllic of the Ldylls and it is in most 
respects the most touching, as a picture of Elaine's love, 
'that never found its mortal close,' and Lancelot's great 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

and guilty passion ' that marred his face and marked it ere 

his time/ Tennyson's power of drawing the characters of 

simple and lovable women is here seen to perfection. It is 

a harder task to depict women like Enid and 
-Lancelot and Elaine faif and lovable bei with u th 

Elaine." ' & 

charm of purity and goodness, but moving 

steadfastly within the orbit of simple duties, and lacking the 

effect of deviation, the contrast of light and shade, that we 

see in the lives of less clear-natured women. In delineating 

these gracious creatures, Tennyson stands unrivaled ; and 

in his rare sympathy with such types of womanly purity, we 

may perceive the almost feminine delicacy of his mind." 

The Passing of Arthur is the concluding idyll of the poem, 

yet it was the first one of the series to be 
<<T ^ur!- g0f writt ^n. In the volume of 1842 the largest 

part of the poem appeared under the title of 
Morte d' Arthur. It is a fitting end to the poem in every 
way. Arthur received Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake 
and he returns it to her. Then the barge appears to carry 
him to the blest Avilion. " The symbolism in this portion 
of the idyll is less prominent, and the story is told in 
Homeric simplicity and directness. . . . Arthur's earthly 
realm may reel back into the beast," and his round table 
may be dissolved ; but his purity is untarnished, his honor 
is without stain, and the ideal which he has striven to real- 
ize has lost none of its inward vitality and significance. 
As he passes from earth to " vanish into light," he already 
gives a forecast of his return as the representative of the 
new chivalry, when he shall come 

With all good things, and war shall be no more. 



xxx INTRODUCTION 



TENNYSON'S BLANK VERSE 

Tennyson " is the creator of a new blank verse, different 
both from the Elizabethan and from the Miltonic. He has 
known how to modulate it to every theme, and to elicit 
a music appropriate to each ; attuning it in 
His blank verse, turn to a tender and lovely grace, as in The 
Gardener's Daughter ; to the severe and ideal 
majesty of the antique, as in Titho?ius ; to meditative thought, 
as in The Ancient Sage, or Akbar's Dream ; to pathetic or 
tragic tales of contemporary life, as in Aylmer's Field, or 
Enoch Arden ; or to sustained romantic narration, as in the 
Idylls. No [other] English poet has used blank verse with 
such flexible variety, or drawn from it so large a compass of 
tones ; nor has any maintained it so equally on a high level 
of excellence." 

The artistic and musical blank verse of the Idylls of the 
King is not crystallized into arbitrary forms. The poet takes 
all the liberties of the musician. Time is the basal element in 
his verse structure. The movement is quickened or retarded 
according to the thought. " Don't write so rhythmically," 
his father said to the boy poet ; " break your lines occasion- 
ally for the sake of variety." Tennyson, following this sug- 
gestion, declared that he was nearer thirty than twenty before 
he was anything of an artist. While he rigidly conforms to the 
pentameter line, he gains variety and many delicate shades 
of effect by using almost every possible mixture of feet. 
The feet not iambic are called substituted feet. He himself 
tells us how blank verse ought to be made : " The English 
public think that blank verse is the easiest thing in the world 
to write, mere prose cut up into five-foot lines ; whereas it 
is one of the most difficult. In a blank verse you can have 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

from three up to eight beats [or accents] ; but, if you vary 
the beats unusually, your ordinary newspaper critic sets up 
a howl. The varying of the beats, of the construction of 
the feet, of the emphasis, of the extra-metrical syllables, and 
of the pauses, helps to make the greatness of blank verse." 
In order to discuss this verse with intelligence and appre- 
ciation, it is necessary to agree on a vocabulary; such a 
vocabulary is here suggested. Meter is measure. Verse is 
measured language. A verse is a single line of measured 
language. Language is measured by the foot. 

Vocabulary for * . 7- - r \ 

the study of Ten- A foot is a combination of two or three sylla- 

nyson's blank bles, usually containing one accent or more, 
verse. 

There are eight kinds of feet found in Tenny- 
son's blank verse : the iamb^ a foot of two syllables, the 
second of which is accented, indicated in writing thus (y /) ; 
the trochee, a foot of tyvo syllables, the first of which is 
accented, indicated (/^); the spondee, two syllables, both 
accented (//) ; the pyrrhic, two syllables, neither accented 
(w^); the anapest, three syllables, the last of which is 
accented (^^/); the dactyl, three syllables, first accented 
(/ww); the amphibrach, three syllables, second accented 
(w/^); and the amphimacer, three syllables, first and last 
accented (/w/). Saintsbury speaks even of the tribrachs 
of Tennyson's idylls. Language to be measured must be 
rhythmic. Perfect rhythm is produced by a regular succes- 
sion of the same foot or of feet that require equal intervals 
of time for utterance. The greater swells of a rhythmic 
movement are produced by a regular succession of verses of 
equal measure or of verses that require equal intervals of 
time for utterance. Perfect blank verse consists of lines, 
or verses, which contain five iambic feet and which do not 
rhyme. (Loosely speaking, rhyme is similarity of sound 
occurring usually at the end of successive or alternating 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

verses.) Such verse containing five iambic feet is de- 
scribed as iambic pentameter. Scansion consists of reading 
verse so as to reproduce its rhythm by indicating the natu- 
ral beats of the feet, the varying flow of the movement, and 
the changing pulsations of the thought. In scanning blank 
verse do not try to make all the feet iambic ; read for the 
thought and the effect, and allow the accents to fall where they 
must. Describe every verse as iambic pentameter, point- 
ing out and naming the substituted feet. 

The prevailing verse in the Idylls of the King is iambic 
pentameter, such as the following : 

And friend | slew friend | not know|ing whom | he slew; 

\j / I \j . / 1 o / \ \j ^ I w ^ 
And. some | had vijsions out | of goldjen youth, 

The Passing of Arthur, 11. 101, 102. 

While a surpassing number of verses contain five beats 
there is almost every possible arrangement of accented and 
unaccented syllables with reference to one another. Here 
and hereafter rhythmic stress and not syllabic accent is 
meant by the word " accent/' In scanning, the syllables 
of polysyllabic words bearing either primary or secondary 
word or syllabic accents may have also rhythmic stress. 
Do not mispronounce words in order to make the rhythm 
regularly iambic. 

Every new arrangement of rhythmic accents produces a 
new effect. Note the following variations in the kinds of 
feet used in verse of five rhythmic beats : 

/ \j I \j / I \j / I \j / I vy ■/ 

Prisoned, | and kept | and coax'd | and whis|tled to — 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 14. 

This may be described as an iambic pentameter verse with 
a trochee substituted for the first iamb. 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

^ / 1^ / / \J \ \J / I V / 

He nev|er spake | word of | reproach | to me, 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 124. 

In this verse the third and fourth feet form a choriambus 
(a trochee followed by an iamb), and in the following verse 
a hesitating effect is produced by a double choriambus. 

First as | in fear, || step af|ter step || she stole 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 340. 

/ \j I / / I \j / I \j \j I \j / 

Till the I High God | behold | it from | beyond, 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 16. 

Described as an iambic pentameter verse with a trochee 
substituted for the first, a spondee for the second, and a 
pyrrhic for the fourth iambs. 

Meeker | than an|y child | to a | rough nurse, 

Lancelot and Elai?ie, 1. 852. 

Note the jarring effect produced by the pyrrhic followed 
by the spondee. 

All night I in a I waste land | where no | one comes, 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 370. 
\J / I \J / I \J U I / / \ \j / 

And there, | that day | when the | great light | of heaven 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 90. 

/ \j \j / I \j /I \j \y / / 

Southward | they set | their fa|ces. The | birds made 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 179. 

Rapidly and lightly gliding effects are produced by the 
introduction of extra syllables. The five-accent lines may 
have eleven or twelve syllables like the following. 



In ev|er high|ering ea|gle cir|cles up 



Gareth and Lynette, 1. 2 1 . 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 



And Ga|reth went | and hov|ering round | her chair 



Gareth and Lynette, 1. 33. 



\j / \\j /I / /I w w I w ^ / 

That smells a foul- flesh 'd ag aric in the holt, 



Gareth and Lynette, 1. 729. 



For this | an eagle, | a roy|al ea|gle, laid 



Gareth ajid Lynette, 1. 44. 



Anon, I the whole | fair city | had dis|appear'd. 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 193. 

Then I | so shook | him in | the saddle, | he said, 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 29. 

*An I I could climb | and lay | my hand | upon it, 

Gareth and Lynette, I. 50. 

Here the last foot is an amphibrach, and in the next verse 
the last foot is an amphimacer, a foot rarely found at the 
end of a line. 

\j / \ \j / \\j \j \ \j / \ /\j / 
At times | the sum|mit of | the high | city flash'd; 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 189. 

Milder | than an|y mother | to a | sick child, 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 853. 

This verse is described as an iambic pentameter verse 
wirh a trochee substituted for the first, an amphibrach for 
the third, a pyrrhic for the fourth, and a spondee for the 
fifth iambs. 

To weary | her ears | with one | continuous prayer, 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 19. 

This and the following two verses have five accents and 
twelve syllables. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 



Immingled | with Heav|en's a|zure wav|eringly, 



Gareth and Lynette, 1. 914. 
f\j\j \ \J / I \J f\j\ \J \J I / / 

Melody | on branch | and melo|dy in | mid air. 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 180. 

This verse, with its dactyl and iamb and amphibrach and 
spondee, reproduces the melody of the lark or of the thrush. 

Verses of three beats are of rare occurrence, but those of 
four accents are found with greater frequency. Rapidity of 
movement is gained by lessening the number of accented 
syllables ; and often the movement is lightened by the 
introduction of extra syllables, eleven and twelve not being 
uncommon. 

And the | long glolry of | the win|ter moon. 

The Passing of Arthur y 1. 360. 

Burn'd at | his low|est in | the roll|ing year, 

The Passing of Arthur y 1. 91. 
\J / I \J / \ \J / \J I \j \J I \J / 

Look in | upon | the battle ; | and in | the mist 

The Passing of Arthur , 1. 104. 

And let | the story | of her dol|orous | voyage 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 1332. 

In verses of six and seven accents, the added beats pro- 
duce emphasis or the effect of harshness, impressiveness, 
stateliness, solemnity, or kindred tones. With the normal 
number of syllables, the effect is very marked. 



Shrill, chill, 


1 with flakes 


\ \j / 1 \j / 1 \j / 
of foam. 1 He, step|ping down 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 217. 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 



/ ^ I / / \\j / I « yu| / w 
Down the | long tow|er stairs | hesi|tating : 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 341. 

Note the hesitating of this verse and the slow tread of 
the following. 

^ / l / t \ t \j \ \j / ivy / 

'And so J strode back | slow to | the wound|ed King. 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 280. 

^ /I 7 / I / / I w V I w / 

Like this | last, dim, | weird bat|tle of | the west. 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 94. 

Note the solemn weirdness produced in this verse by the 
five successive accents and the emphasis produced in the 
following verses by the distribution of the accents. 

/ W I / / I KJ / I \J / I \J / 

He is I all fault | who hath | no fault | at all : 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 132. 
/ / Ivy \J I / /Ivy /Ivy / 

Good moth|er is | bad moth|er un|to me! 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 16. 
\j / I \j / \\J / Wj / \ /\J / 

Needs must | be less|er likejlihood, | noble lord, 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 365. 

w / \ / / I \j / I w /Ivy vy / 

A dead | hush fell ; | but when | the doljorous day 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 122. 

\j \j / I / / / vy I /w vy I / vy 

And with mine | own hand | give his | diamond | to him, 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 755. 

u / j /^ I / w / w / I vy / 

For I, I being | simple, | thought to work | His will. 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 22. 

/ vy /Ivy/Ivy / I / ^y|w / 

«Thou hast half | prevail'd | against | me,' said | so — he — 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 30. 

/ vy \j I vy /Ivyvy /|^ / I / / 

Muttering | and mur|muring at | his ear, | " Quick, quick! 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 347. 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

The following verses, which contain seven accents, are 
still more weighty or imposing. 

" Hearest | thou this | great voice | that shakes | the world, 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 139. 

/ yj / I w f-\ \j / I / / I v> / 

Ran to her, | and lo ! | the blood-|red light | of dawn 

Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 1018. 

/ \J I / / I / V / I w /. I vy / 

Stay, my | best son ! | ye are yet | more boy | than man." 

Gareth and Lynette, 1. 97. 
/w / I \j \j\ / / I / W / I ^ / 

Were it well | to o|bey then, | if a king | demand 

The Passing of Arthur, 1. 263. 

Thus all the lights and shades and variations of tone and 
voice and color are reproduced by the art of Tennyson. 
Nature is made to teem with life and to sparkle with beauty. 



REFERENCES 

The student will find the following books and papers of value 
in an appreciative and sympathetic study of the Idylls of the 
King. 

Alfred Lord Tennyson : a Memoir by his Son. 

Tennyson : His Art and Relation to Modem Life, by the Rev. 
Stopford A. Brooke. 

Tennyson's Idylls of the King, edited by William J. Rolfe. 

The Poetry of Tennyson, by the Rev. Henry Van Dyke. 

The Growth of the Idylls of the King, by Richard Jones, Ph.D. 

Essays on Tennyson's Idylls of the King, by Harold Littledale. 

Morte Darthur, by Sir Thomas Malory. 

"The Idylls of the King," by Henry (Dean) Alford, Con- 
temporary Review, January, 1870. 

" The Meaning of Mr. Tennyson's King Arthur," Contemporary 
Review, May, 1873. 



xl 



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KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE 

" Bedivere — ' First made and latest left of all the knights '; 

Lancelot — ' His warrior whom he loved and honored most' ; 

Gawain — ' A reckless and irreverent knight was he ' ; 

Modred — ' Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom ' ; 

Gareth — ' Underwent the sooty yoke of kitchen vassalage ' ; 

Kay — ' No mellow master of the meats and drinks ' ; 

Geraint — 'A tributary prince of Devon,' married to Enid ; 

Balin — 'The Savage'; and Balan, his brother; 

Percivale — ' Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure ' ; 

Galahad — ' But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail ' ; 

Bors — ' A square-set man and honest,' of Lancelot's kin ; 

Pelleas — ' Of the Isles ' ; enamored of Ettarre ; 

Tristram — < Of the Woods ' ; slain by Mark, Isolt's husband." 

Rowe. 



xliv 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 

The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, 

And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring 

Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted pine 

Lost footing, fell, and so was wbirl'd away. 

" How he went down," said Gareth, " as a false knight 5 

Or evil king before my lance, if lance 

Were mine to use — O senseless cataract, 

Bearing all down in thy precipitancy — 

And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows 

And mine is living blood : thou dost His will, 10 

The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know, 

Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall 

Linger with vacillating obedience, 

Prison'd, and kept and coax'd and whistled to — 

Since the good mother holds me still a child ! 15 

Good mother is bad mother unto me ! 

A worse were better ; yet no worse would I. 

Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force 

To weary her ears with one continuous prayer, 

Until she let me fly discaged to sweep 20 

In ever-highering eagle-circles up 

To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop 

Down upon all things base, and dash them dead, 

A knight of Arthur, working out his will, 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came 25 

With Modred hither in the summer-time, 

Ask'd me to tilt with him, the proven knight. 

Modred for want of worthier was the judge. 

Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said, 

' Thou hast half prevail'd against me/ said so — he — 30 ; 

Tho' Modred biting his thin lips was mute, 

For he is alway sullen : what care I ? " 

And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair 
Ask'd, " Mother, tho' ye count me still the child, 
Sweet mother, do ye love the child ? " She laughed, 35 

"Thou art but a wild-goose to question it."« 
"Then, mother, an ye love the child," he said, 
" Being a goose and rather tame than wild, 
Hear the child's story." "Yea, my well-beloved, 
An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs." 40 

And Gareth answer'd her with kindling eyes : 
"Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine 
Was finer gold than any goose can lay; 
For this an eagle, a royal eagle, laid 

Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm 45 

As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours. 
And there was ever haunting round the palm 
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw 
The splendor sparkling from aloft, and thought, 
1 An I could climb and lay my hand upon it, 50 

Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings.' 
But ever when he reach'd a hand to climb, . 1 

One that had loved him from his childhood caught 
And stay'd him, ■ Climb not lest thou break thy neck, 
I charge thee by my love,' and so the boy, 55 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 3 

Sweet mother, neither clomb nor brake his neck, 
But brake his very heart in pining for it, 
And past away." 

To whom the mother said, 
" True love, sweet son, had risk'd himself and climb'd, 
And handed down the golden treasure to him." 60 

And Gareth answer'd her with kindling eyes : 
" Gold ? said I gold ? — ay then, why he, or she, 
Or whosoe'er it was, or half the world 
Had ventured — had the thing I spake of been 
Mere gold — but this was all of that true steel 65 

Whereof they forged the brand Excalibur, 
And lightnings play'd about it in the storm, 
And all the little fowl were flurried at it, 
And there were cries and clashings in the nest, 
That sent him from his senses : let me go." 70 

Then Bellicent bemoan'd herself and said : 
" Hast thou no pity upon my loneliness ? 
Lo, where thy father Lot beside the hearth 
Lies like a log, and all but smoulder'd out ! 
For ever since when traitor to the King 75 

He fought against him in the barons' war, 
And Arthur gave him back his territory, 
His age hath slowly droopt, and now lies there 
A yet-warm corpse, and yet unburiable, 

No more ; nor sees, nor hears, nor speaks, nor knows. 80 
And both thy brethren are in Arthur's hall, 
Albeit neither loved with that full love 
I feel for thee, nor worthy such a love. 
Stay therefore thou ; red berries charm the bird, 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And thee, mine innocent, the jousts, the wars, 85 

Who never knewest finger-ache, nor pang 

Of wrench'd or broken limb — an often chance 

In those brain-stunning shocks, and tourney-falls, 

Frights to my heart ; but stay : follow the deer 

By these tall firs and our fast-falling burns ; 90 

So make thy manhood mightier day by day ; 

Sweet is the chase : and I will seek thee out 

Some comfortable bride and fair, to grace 

Thy climbing life, and cherish my prone year, 

Till falling into Lot's forgetfulness 95 

I know not thee, myself, nor anything. 

Stay, my best son ! ye are yet more boy than man." 

Then Gareth : " An ye hold me yet for child, 
Hear yet once more the story of the child. 
For, mother, there was once a king, like ours. 100 

The prince his heir, when tall and marriageable, 
Ask'd for a bride ; and thereupon the king 
Set two before him. One was fair, strong, arm'd — 
But to be won by force — and many men 

Desired her ; one, good lack, no man desired. 105 

And these were the conditions of the king : 
That save he won the first by force, he needs 
Must wed that other, whom no man desired, 
A red-faced bride who knew herself so vile 
That evermore she long'd to hide herself, no 

Nor fronted man or woman, eye to eye — 
Yea — some she cleaved to, but they died of her. 
And one — they call'd her Fame; and one — O mother. 
How can ye keep me tether'd to you ? — Shame. 
Man am I grown, a man's work must I do. 115 

Follow the deer ? follow the Christ, the King, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 5 

Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King — 
Else, wherefore born ? " 

To whom the mother said : 
" Sweet son, for there be many who deem him not, 
Or will not deem him, wholly proven King — 120 

Albeit in mine own heart I knew him King 
When I was frequent with him in my youth, 
And heard him kingly speak, and doubted him 
No more than he, himself ; but felt him mine, 
Of closest kin to me : yet — wilt thou leave 125 

Thine easeful biding here, and risk thine all, 
Life, limbs, for one that is not proven King ? 
Stay, till the cloud that settles round his birth 
Hath lifted but a little. Stay, sweet son." 

And Gareth answer'd quickly: "Not an hour, 130 

So that ye yield me — I will walk thro' fire, 
Mother, to gain it — your full leave to go. 
Not proven, who swept the dust of ruin'd Rome 
From off the threshold of the realm, and crush'd 
The idolaters, and made the people free ? 135 

Who should be king save him who makes us free ? " 

So when the Queen, who long had sought in vain 
To break him from the intent to which he grew, 
Found her son's will unwaveringly one, 

She answer'd craftily : " Will ye walk thro' fire ? 140 

Who walks thro ? fire will hardly heed the smoke. 
Ay, go then, an ye must : only one proof, 
Before thou ask the King to make thee knight, 
Of thine obedience and thy love to me, 
Thy mother, — I demand." 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And Gareth cried : 
11 A hard one, or a hundred, so I go. 
Xay quick ! the proof to prove me to the quick ! " 

But slowly spake the mother looking at him : 
" Prince, thou shalt go disguised to Arthur's hall, 
And hire thyself to serve for meats and drinks 
Among the scullions and the kitchen-knaves, 
And those that hand the dish across the bar. 
Nor shalt thou tell thy name to any one. 
And thou shalt serve a twelvemonth and a day." 

For so the Queen believed that when her son 
Beheld his only way to glory lead 
Low down thro' villain kitchen-vassalage, 
Her own true Gareth was too princely-proud 
To pass thereby ; so should he rest with her, 
Closed in her castle from the sound of arms. 

Silent awhile was Gareth, then replied : 
" The thrall in person may be free in soul, 
And I shall see the jousts. Thy son am I, 
And, since thou art my mother, must obey. 
I therefore yield me freely to thy will ; 
For hence will I, disguised, and hire myself 
To serve with scullions and with kitchen-knaves ; 
Nor tell my name to any — no, not the King." 

Gareth awhile linger'd. The mother's eye 
Full of the wistful fear that he would go, 
And turning toward him wheresoe'er he turn'd, 
lVrplext his outward purpose, till an hour 
When, waken'd by the wind which with full voice 



GARETH AND LYNETTE J 

Swept bellowing thro* the darkness on to dawn, 

He rose, and out of slumber calling two I7 ^ 

That still had tended on him from his birth, 

Before the wakeful mother heard him, went. 

The three were clad like tillers of the soil. 
Southward they set their faces. The birds made 
Melody on branch and melody in mid air. 180 

The damp hill-slopes were quicken'd into green, 
And the live green had kindled into flowers, 
For it was past the time of Easter-day. 

So, when their feet were planted on the plain 
That broaden'd toward the base of Camelot, ^5 

Far off they saw the silver-misty morn 
Rolling her smoke about the royal mount, 
That rose between the forest and the field. 
At times the summit of the high city flash'd; 
At times the spires and turrets half-way down 190 

Prick'd thro' the mist ; at times the great gate shone 
Only, that open'd on the field below: 
Anon, the whole fair city had disappear'd. 

Then those who went with Gareth were amazed, 
One crying, "Let us go no further, lord : 195 

Here is a city of enchanters, built 
By fairy kings." The second echo'd him, 
"Lord, we have heard from our wise man at home 
To northward, that this king is not the King, 
But only changeling out of Fairyland, 200 

Who drave the heathen hence by sorcery 
And Merlin's glamour." Then the first again, 
"Lord, there is no such city anywhere, 
But all a vision." 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Gareth answer'd them 
With laughter, swearing he had glamour enow 205 

In his own blood, his princedom, youth, and hopes, 
To plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea; 
So push'd them all unwilling toward the gate. 
And there was no gate like it under heaven. 
For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined 210 

And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, 
The Lady of the Lake stood : all her dress 
Wept from her sides as water flowing away ; 
But like the cross her great and goodly arms 
Stretch'd under all the cornice and upheld : 215 

And drops of water fell from either hand ; 
And down from one a sword was hung, from one 
A censer, either worn with wind and storm ; 
And o'er her breast floated the sacred fish ; 
And in the space to left of her, and right, 220 

Were Arthur's wars in weird devices done, 
New things and old co-twisted, as if Time 
Were nothing, so inveterately that men 
Were giddy gazing there ; and over all 

High on the top were those three queens, the friends 225 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need. 

Then those with Gareth for so long a space 
Stared at the figures that at last it seem'd 
The dragon-boughts and elvish emblemings 
Began to move, seethe, twine, and curl : they call'd 230 

To Gareth, "Lord, the gateway is alive." 

And Gareth likewise on them fixt his eyes 
So long that even to him they seem'd to move. 
Out of the city a blast of music peaPd. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 9 

Back from the gate started the three, to whom 235 

From out thereunder came an ancient man 
Long-bearded, saying, "Who be ye, my sons?" 

Then Gareth: "We be tillers of the soil, 
Who leaving share in furrow come to see 

The glories of our King: but these, my men, — 240 

Your city moved so weirdly in the mist — 
Doubt if the King be king at all, or come 
From Fairyland; and whether this be built 
By magic, and by fairy kings and queens ; 
Or whether there be any city at all, 245 

Or all a vision : and this music now 
Hath scared them both, but tell thou these the truth." 

Then that old Seer made answer, playing on him 
And saying: "Son, I have seen the good ship sail 
Keel upward and mast downward, in the heavens, 250 

And solid turrets topsy-turvy in air : 
And here is truth ; but an it please thee not, 
Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me. 
For truly, as thou sayest, a fairy king 

And fairy queens have built the city, son ; 255 

They came from out a sacred mountain-cleft 
Toward the sunrise, each with harp in hand, 
And built it to the music of their harps. 
And, as thou sayest, it is enchanted, son, 

For there is nothing in it as it seems 260 

Saving the King ; tho' some there be that hold 
The King a shadow, and the city real ; 
Yet take thou heed of him, for, so thou pass 
Beneath this archway, then wilt thou become 
A thrall to his enchantments, for the King 265 



IO IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Will bind thee by such vows as is a shame 

A man should not be bound by, yet the which 

No man can keep ; but, so thou dread to swear, 

Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide 

Without, among the cattle of the field. 270 

For an ye heard a music, like enow 

They are building still, seeing the city is built 

To music, therefore never built at all, 

And therefore built for ever." 

Gareth spake 
Anger'd : "Old master, reverence thine own beard 275 

That looks as white as utter truth, and seems 
Wellnigh as long as thou art statured tall ! 
Why mockest thou the stranger that hath been 
To thee fair-spoken ? " 

But the Seer replied : 
"Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards: 280 

* Confusion, and illusion, and relation, 
Elusion, and occasion, and evasion'? 
I mock thee not but as thou mockest me, 
And all that see thee, for thou art not who 
Thou seemest, but I know thee who thou art. 2 g 5 

And now thou goest up to mock the King, 
Who cannot brook the shadow of any lie." 

Unmockingly the mocker ending here, 
Turn'd to the right, and past along the plain ; 
Whom Gareth looking after said : "My men, 290 

Our one white lie sits like a little ghost 
Here on the threshold of our enterprise. 
Let love be blamed for it, not she, nor I : 
Well, we will make amends." 



GARETH AND LYNETTE II 

With all good cheer 
He spake and laugh'd, then enter'd with his twain 295 

Camelot, a city of shadowy palaces 
And stately, rich in emblem and the work 
Of ancient kings who did their days in stone ; 
Which Merlin's hand, the Mage at Arthur's court, 
Knowing all arts, had touch'd, and everywhere, 300 

At Arthur's ordinance, tipt with lessening peak 
And pinnacle, and had made it spire to heaven. 
And ever and anon a knight would pass 
Outward, or inward to the hall : his arms 
Clash'd ; and the sound was good to Gareth's ear. 305 

And out of bower and casement shyly glanced 
Eyes of pure women, wholesome stars of love ; 
And all about a healthful people stept 
As in the presence of a gracious king. 

Then into hall Gareth ascending heard 310 

A voice, the voice of Arthur, and beheld 
Far over heads in that long-vaulted hall 
The splendor of the presence of the King 
Throned, and delivering doom — and look'd no more — 
But felt his young heart hammering in his ears, 315 

And thought, " For this half-shadow of a lie 
The truthful King will doom me when I speak." 
Yet pressing on, tho' all in fear to find 
Sir Gawain or Sir Modred, saw nor one 

Nor other, but in all the listening eyes 320 

Of those tall knights that ranged about the throne 
Clear honor shining like the dewy star 
Of dawn, and faith in their great King, with pure 
Affection, and the light of victory, 
And glory gain'd, and evermore to gain. 325 



12 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Then came a widow crying to the King: 
"A boon, Sir King! Thy father, Uther, reft 
From my dead lord a field with violence ; 
For howsoe'er at first he proffer'd gold, 

Yet, for the field was pleasant in our eyes, 330 

We yielded not ; and then he reft us of it 
Perforce and left us neither gold nor field." 

Said Arthur, " Whether would ye ? gold or field? " 
To whom the woman weeping, "Nay, my lord, 
The field was pleasant in my husband's eye." 335 

And Arthur: "Have thy pleasant field again, 
And thrice the gold for Uther's use thereof, 
According to the years. No boon is here, 
But justice, so thy say be proven true. 

Accursed, who from the wrongs his father did 340 

Would shape himself a right ! " 

And while she past, 
Came yet another widow crying to him : 
"A boon, Sir King ! Thine enemy, King, am I. 
With thine own hand thou slewest my dear lord, 
A knight of Uther in the barons' war, 345 

When Lot and many another rose and fought 
Against thee, saying thou wert basely born. 
I held with these, and loathe to ask thee aught. 
Yet lo ! my husband's brother had my son 
ThralPd in his castle, and hath starved him dead, 350 

And standeth seized of that inheritance 
Which thou that slewest the sire hast left the son. 
So, tho' I scarce can ask it thee for hate, 
Grant me some knight to do the battle for me, 
Kill the foul thief, and wreak me for my son." 355 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 13 

Then strode a good knight forward, crying to him, 
"A boon, Sir King ! I am her kinsman, I. 
Give me to right her wrong, and slay the man." 

Then came Sir Kay, the seneschal, and cried, 
" A boon, Sir King ! even that thou grant her none, 360 

This railer, that hath mock'd thee in full hall — 
None ; or the wholesome boon of gyve and gag." 

But Arthur: "We sit King, to help the wrong'd 
Thro' all our realm. The woman loves her lord. 
Peace to thee, woman, with thy loves and hates ! 365 

The kings of old had doom'd thee to the flames ; 
Aurelius Emrys would have scourged thee dead, 
And Uther slit thy tongue : but get thee hence — 
Lest that rough humor of the kings of old 
Return upon me! Thou that art her kin, 370 

Go likewise ; lay him low and slay him not, 
But bring him here, that I may judge the right, 
According to the justice of the King : 
Then, be he guilty, by that deathless King 
Who lived and died for men, the man shall die." 375 

Then came in hall the messenger of Mark, 
A name of evil savor in the land, 
The Cornish king. In either hand he bore 
What dazzled all, and shone far-off" as shines 
A field of charlock in the sudden sun 380 

Between two showers, a cloth of palest gold, 
Which down he laid before the throne, and knelt, 
Delivering that his lord, the vassal king, 
Was even upon his way to Camelot ; 
For having heard that Arthur of his grace 385 



I4 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Had made his goodly cousin Tristram knight, 
And, for himself was of the greater state, 
Being a king, he trusted his liege-lord 
Would yield him this large honor all the more ; 
So pray'd him well to accept this cloth of gold, 
In token of true heart and fealty. 

Then Arthur cried to rend the cloth, to rend 
In pieces, and so cast it on the hearth. 
An oak-tree smoulder'd there. " The goodly knight ! 
What ! shall the shield of Mark stand among these? " 
For, midway down the side of that long hall, 
A stately pile, — whereof along the front, 
S.ome blazon'd, some but carven, and some blank, 
There ran a treble range of stony shields, — 
Rose, and high-arching over-brow'd the hearth. 
And under every shield a knight was named. 
For this was Arthur's custom in his hall : 
When some good knight had done one noble deed, 
His arms were carven only ; but if twain, 
His arms were blazon'd also ; but if none, 
The shield was blank and bare, without a sign 
Saving the name beneath : and Gareth saw 
The shield of Gawain blazon'd rich and bright, 
And Modred's blank as death ; and Arthur cried 
To rend the cloth and cast it on the hearth. 

" More like are we to reave him of his crown 
Than make him knight because men call him king. 
The kings we found, ye know we stay'd their hands 
From war among themselves, but left them kings ; 
Of whom were any bounteous, merciful, 
Truth-speaking, brave, good livers, them we enroll'd 



GARETH AND LYNETTE I 5 

Among us, and they sit within our hall. 

But Mark hath tarnish'd the great name of king, 

As Mark would sully the low state of churl; 

And, seeing he hath sent us cloth of gold, 420 

Return, and meet, and hold him from our eyes, 

Lest we should lap him up in cloth of lead, 

Silenced for ever — craven — a man of plots, 

Craft, poisonous counsels, wayside ambushings — 

No fault of thine : let Kay the seneschal 425 

Look to thy wants, and send thee satisfied — 

Accursed, who strikes nor lets the hand be seen ! " 

And many another suppliant crying came 
With noise of ravage wrought by beast and man, 
And evermore a knight would ride away. 430 

Last, Gareth leaning both hands heavily 
Down on the shoulders of the twain, his men, 
Approach'd between them toward the King, and ask'd, 
" A boon, Sir King," — his voice was all ashamed, — 
" For see ye not how weak and hunger-worn 435 

I seem — leaning on these ? grant me to serve 
For meat and drink among thy kitchen-knaves 
A twelvemonth and a day, nor seek my name. 
Hereafter I will fight." 

To him the King : 
" A goodly youth and worth a goodlier boon ! 440 

But so thou wilt no goodlier, then must Kay, 
The master of the meats and drinks, be thine." 

He rose and past ; then Kay, a man of mien 
Wan-sallow as the plant that feels itself 
Root-bitten by white lichen : 



16 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

"Lo ye now ! 445 

This fellow hath broken from some abbey, where, 
God wot, he had not beef and brewis enow, 
However that might chance ! but an he work, 
Like any pigeon will I cram his crop, 
And sleeker shall he shine than any hog." 450 

Then Lancelot standing near : " Sir Seneschal, 
Sleuth-hound thou knowest, and gray, and all the hounds ; 
A horse thou knowest, a man thou dost not know : 
Broad brows and fair, a fluent hair and fine, 
High nose, a nostril large and fine, and hands, 455 

Large, fair, and fine ! — Some young lad's mystery — 
But, or from sheepcot or king's hall, the boy 
Is noble-natured. Treat him with all grace, 
Lest he should come to shame thy judging of him." 

Then Kay : " What murmurest thou of mystery ? 460 

Think ye this fellow will poison the King's dish ? 
Nay, for he spake too fool-like : mystery ! 
Tut, an the lad were noble, he had ask'd 
For horse and armor : fair and fine, forsooth! 
Sir Fine-face, Sir Fair-hands ? but see thou to it 465 

That thine own fineness, Lancelot, some fine day 
Undo thee not — and leave my man to me." 

So Gareth all for glory underwent 
The sooty yoke of kitchen-vassalage, 

Ate with young lads his portion by the door, 470 

And couch'd at night with grimy kitchen-knaves. 
And Lancelot ever spake him pleasantly, 
But Kay the seneschal, who loved him not, 
Would hustle and harry him, and labor him 






GARETH AND LYNETTE I 7 

Beyond his comrade of the hearth, and set 475 

To turn the broach, draw water, or hew wood, 

Or grosser tasks ; and Gareth bow'd himself 

With all obedience to the King, and wrought 

All kind of service with a noble ease 

That graced the lowliest act in doing it, 480 

And when the thralls had talk among themselves, 

And one would praise the love that linkt the King 

And Lancelot — how the King had saved his life 

In battle twice, and Lancelot once the King's — 

For Lancelot was the first in tournament, 485 

But Arthur mightiest on the battle-field — 

Gareth was glad. Or if some other told 

How once the wandering forester at dawn, 

Far over the blue tarns and hazy seas, 

On Caer-Eryri's highest found the King, 490 

A naked babe, of whom the Prophet spake, 

" He passes to the Isle Avilion, 

He passes and is heal'd and cannot die " — 

Gareth was glad. But if their talk were foul, 

Then would he whistle rapid as any lark, 49 5 

Or carol some old roundelay, and so loud 

That first they mock'd, but, after, reverenced him. 

Or Gareth, telling some prodigious tale 

Of knights who sliced a red life-bubbling way 

Thro' twenty folds of twisted dragon, held 500 

All in a gap-mouth'd circle his good mates 

Lying or sitting round him, idle hands, 

Charm'd ; till Sir Kay, the seneschal, would come 

Blustering upon them, like a sudden wind 

Among dead leaves, and drive them all apart. 505 

Or when the thralls had sport among themselves, 

So there were any trial of mastery, 



xS IDYLLS OF THE KING 

He, by two yards in casting bar or stone, 

Was counted best; and if there chanced a joust, 

So that Sir Kay nodded him leave to go, 510 

Would hurry thither, and when he saw the knights 

Clash like the coming and retiring wave, 

And the spear spring, and good horse reel, the boy 

Was half beyond himself for ecstasy. 

So for a month he wrought among the thralls ; 515 

But in the weeks that follow'd, the good Queen, 
Repentant of the word she made him swear, 
And saddening in her childless castle, sent, 
Between the in-crescent and de-crescent moon, 
Arms for her son, and loosed him from his vow. 520 

This, Gareth hearing from a squire of Lot 
With whom he used to play at tourney once, 
When both were children, and in lonely haunts 
Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand, 
And each at either dash from either end — 525 

Shame never made girl redder than Gareth joy. 
He laugh/ d ; he sprang. " Out of the smoke, at once 
I leap from Satan's foot to Peter's knee — 
These news be mine, none other's — nay, the King's — 
Descend into the city : " whereon he sought 530 

The King alone, and found, and told him all. 

" I have stagger'd thy strong Gawain in a tilt 
For pastime ; yea, he said it : joust can I. 
Make me thy knight — in secret ! let my name 
Be hidden, and give me the first quest, I spring 535 

Like flame from ashes." 

Here the King's calm eye 
Fell on, and check'd, and made him flush, and bow 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 19 

Lowly, to kiss his hand, who answer'd him : 

" Son, the good mother let me know thee here, 

And sent her wish that I would yield thee thine. 540 

Make thee my knight ? my knights are sworn to vows 

Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness, 

And, loving, utter faithfulness in love, 

And uttermost obedience to the King." 

Then Gareth, lightly springing from his knees : 545 

" My King, for hardihood I can promise thee. 
For uttermost obedience make demand 
Of whom ye gave me to, the Seneschal, 
No mellow master of the meats and drinks ! 
And as for love, God wot, I love not yet, 550 

But love I shall, God willing." 

And the King : 
" Make thee my knight in secret ? yea, but he, 
Our noblest brother, and our truest man, 
And one with me in all, he needs must know." 

" Let Lancelot know, my King, let Lancelot know, 555 

Thy noblest and thy truest ! " 

And the King: 
" But wherefore would ye men should wonder at you ? 
Nay, rather for the sake of me, their King, 
And the deed's sake my knighthood do the deed, 
Than to be noised of." 

Merrily Gareth ask'd : 560 

" Have I not earn'd my cake in baking of it ? 
Let be my name until I make my name ! 
My deeds will speak : it is but for a day." 



20 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

So with a kindly hand on Gareth's arm 

Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly 565 

Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him. 

Then, after summoning Lancelot privily : 

" I have given him the first quest : he is not proven. 

Look therefore, when he calls for this in hall, 

Thou get to horse and follow him far away. 570 

Cover the lions on thy shield, and see, 

Far as thou mayest, he be nor ta'en nor slain." 

Then that same day there past into the hall 
A damsel of high lineage, and a brow 

May-blossom, and a cheek of apple-blossom, 575 

Hawk-eyes ; and lightly was her slender nose 
Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower : 
She into hall past with her page and cried : 

" O King, for thou hast driven the foe without, 
See to the foe within ! bridge, ford, beset 580 

By bandits, every one that owns a tower 
The lord of half a league. Why sit ye there ? 
Rest would I not, Sir King, an I were king, 
Till even the lonest hold were all as free 

From cursed bloodshed as thine altar-cloth 585 

From that best blood it is a sin to spill." 

" Comfort thyself," said Arthur, " I nor mine 
Rest : so my knighthood keep the vows they swore, 
The wastest moorland of our realm shall be 

Safe, damsel, as the centre of this hall. 59° 

What is thy name ? thy need ? " 

" My name ? " she said — - 
" Lynette, my name ; noble ; my need, a knight 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 21 

To combat for my sister, Lyonors, 

A lady of high lineage, of great lands, 

And comely, yea, and comelier than myself. 

She lives in Castle Perilous : a river 

Runs in three loops about her living-place ; 

And o'er it are three passings, and three knights 

Defend the passings, brethren, and a fourth, 

And of that four the mightiest, holds her stay'd 

In her own castle, and so besieges her 

To break her will, and make her wed with him ; 

And but delays his purport till thou send 

To do the battle with him thy chief man 

Sir Lancelot, whom he trusts to overthrow ; 

Then wed, with glory : but she will not wed 

Save whom she loveth, or a holy life. 

Now therefore have I come for Lancelot." 

Then Arthur mindful of Sir Gareth ask'd : 
" Damsel, ye know this Order lives to crush 
All wrongers of the realm. But say, these four, 
Who be they ? What the fashion of the men ? " 

" They be of foolish fashion, O Sir King, 
The fashion of that old knight-errantry 
Who ride abroad, and do but what they will; 
Courteous or bestial from the moment, such 
As have nor law nor king ; and three of these 
Proud in their fantasy call themselves the Day, 
Morning- Star, and Noon-Sun, and Evening-Star, 
Being strong fools; and never a whit more wise 
The fourth, who alway rideth arm'd in black, 
A huge man-beast of boundless savagery. 
He names himself the Night and oftener Death, 



22 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And wears a helmet mounted with a skull, 
And bears a skeleton figured on his arms, 
To show that who may slay or scape the three, 
Slain by himself, shall enter endless night. 
And all these four be fools, but mighty men, 
And therefore am I come for Lancelot." 

Hereat Sir Gareth calFd from where he rose, 
A head with kindling eyes above the throng, 
"A boon, Sir King — this quest!" then — for he mark'd 
Kay near him groaning like a wounded bull — 
" Yea, King, thou knowest thy kitchen-knave am I, 
And mighty thro' thy meats and drinks am I, 
And I can topple over a hundred such. 
Thy promise, King," and Arthur glancing at him, 
Brought down a momentary brow. " Rough, sudden, 
And pardonable, worthy to be knight — 
Go therefore," and all hearers were amazed. 

But on the damsel's forehead shame, pride, wrath 
Slew the may-white : she lifted either arm, 
" Fie on thee, King ! I ask'd for thy chief knight, 
And thou hast given me but a kitchen-knave." 
Then ere a man in hall could stay her, turn'd, 
Fled down the lane of access to the JCing, 
Took horse, descended the slope street, and past 
The weird white gate, and paused without, beside 
The field of tourney, murmuring "kitchen-knave!" 

Now two great entries open'd from the hall, 
At one end one that gave upon a range 
Of level pavement where the King would pace 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 23 

At sunrise, gazing over plain and wood ; 

And down from this a lordly stairway sloped 

Till lost in blowing trees and tops of towers ; 655 

And out by this main doorway past the King. 

But one was counter to the hearth, and rose 

High that the highest-crested helm could ride 

Therethro' nor graze ; and by this entry fled 

The damsel in her wrath, and on to this 660 

Sir Gareth strode, and saw without the door 

King Arthur's gift, the worth of half a town, 

A war-horse of the best, and near it stood 

The two that out of north had follow'd him. 

This bare a maiden shield, a casque ; that held 665 

The horse, the spear ; whereat Sir Gareth loosed 

A cloak that dropt from collar-bone to heel, 

A cloth of roughest web, and cast it down, 

And from it, like a fuel-smother'd fire 

That lookt half-dead, brake bright, and flash'd as those 670 

Dull-coated things, that making slide apart 

Their dusk wing-cases, all beneath there burns 

A jewelFd harness, ere they pass and fly. 

So Gareth ere he parted flash'd in arms. 

Then as he donn'd the helm, and took the shield 675 

And mounted horse and graspt a spear, of grain 

Storm-strengthen'd on a windy site, and tipt 

With trenchant steel, around him slowly prest 

The people, while from out of kitchen came 

The thralls in throng, and seeing who had work'd 680 

Lustier than any, and whom they could but love, 

Mounted in arms, threw up their caps and cried, 

"God bless the King, and all his fellowship !" 

And on thro' lanes of shouting Gareth rode 

Down the slope street, and past without the gate. 685 



2 4 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

So Gareth past with joy ; but as the cur 
Pluckt from the cur he fights with, ere his cause 
Be cool'd by fighting, follows, being named, 
His owner, but remembers all, and growls 
Remembering, so Sir Kay beside the door 690 

Mutter'd in scorn of Gareth whom he used 
To harry and hustle. 

"Bound upon a quest 
With horse and arms — the King hath past his time — 
My scullion knave ! Thralls, to your work again, 
For an your fire be low ye kindle mine ! 695 

Will there be dawn in West and eve in East ? 
Begone ! — my knave! — belike and like enow 
Some old head-blow not heeded in his youth 
So shook his wits they wander in his prime — 
Crazed ! How the villain lifted up his voice, 700 

Nor shamed to bawl himself a kitchen-knave ! 
Tut, he was tame and meek enow with me, 
Till peacock'd up with Lancelot's noticing. 
Well — I will after my loud knave, and learn 
Whether he know me for his master yet. 705 

Out of the smoke he came, and so my lance 
Hold, by God's grace, he shall into the mire — 
Thence, if the King awaken from his craze, 
Into the smoke again." 

But Lancelot said : 
"Kay, wherefore wilt thou go against the King, 710 

For that did never he whereon ye rail, 
But ever meekly served the King in thee? 
Abide : take counsel ; for this lad is great 
And lusty, and knowing both of lance and sword." 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 25 

"Tut, tell not me," said Kay, "ye are overfine 715 

To mar stout knaves with foolish courtesies : " 
Then mounted, on thro' silent faces rode 
Down the slope city, and out beyond the gate. 

But by the field of tourney lingering yet 
Mutter'd the damsel : "Wherefore did the King 720 

Scorn me ? for, were Sir Lancelot lackt, at least 
He might have yielded to me one of those 
Who tilt for lady's love and glory here, 
Rather than — O sweet heaven ! O fie upon him ! — 
His kitchen-knave." 

To whom Sir Gareth drew — 725 

And there were none but few goodlier than he — 
Shining in arms, "Damsel, the quest is mine. 
Lead, and I follow." She thereat, as one 
That smells a foul-flesh'd agaric in the holt, 
And deems it carrion of some woodland thing, 730 

Or shrew, or weasel, nipt her slender nose 
With petulant thumb and finger, shrilling, "Hence! 
Avoid, thou smellest all of kitchen-grease. 
And look who comes behind;" for there was Kay. 
"Knowest thou not me ? thy master? I am Kay. 735 

We lack thee by the hearth." 

And Gareth to him, 
"Master no more ! too well I know thee, ay — 
The most ungentle knight in Arthurs hall." 
"Have at thee then," said Kay: they shock'd, and Kay 
Fell shoulder-slipt, and Gareth cried again, 740 

"Lead, and I follow," and fast away she fled. 

But after sod and shingle ceased to fly 
Behind her, and the heart of her good horse 



2 6 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Was nigh to burst with violence of the beat, 

Perforce she stay'd, and overtaken spoke : 745 

" What doest thou, scullion, in my fellowship ? 
Deem'st thou that I accept thee aught the more 
Or love thee better, that by some device 
Full cowardly, or by mere unhappiness, 
Thou hast overthrown and slain thy master — thou ! — 750 
Dish-washer and broach-turner, loon ! — to me 
Thou smellest all of kitchen as before." 

"Damsel," Sir Gareth answer'd gently, " say 
Whate'er ye will, but whatsoe'er ye say, 
I leave not till I finish this fair quest, 755 

Or die therefor." 

" Ay, wilt thou finish it ? 
Sweet lord, how like a noble knight he talks ! 
The listening rogue hath caught the manner of it. 
But, knave, anon thou shalt be met with, knave, 
And then by such a one that thou for all 760 

The kitchen brewis that was ever supt 
Shalt not once dare to look him in the face." 

" I shall assay," said Gareth with a smile 
That madden'd her, and away she flash'd again 
Down the long avenues of a boundless wood, 765 

And Gareth following was again beknaved : 

" Sir Kitchen-knave, I have miss'd the only way 
Where Arthur's men are set along the wood ; 
The wood is nigh as full of thieves as leaves : 
If both be slain, I am rid of thee ; but yet, 770 

Sir Scullion, canst thou use that spit of thine ? 
Fight, an thou canst : I have miss'd the only way." 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 27 

So till the dusk that follow'd evensong 
Rode on the two, reviler and reviled ; 

Then after one long slope was mounted, saw, 77 ^ 

Bowl-shaped, thro' tops of many thousand pines 
A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink 
To westward — in the deeps whereof a mere, 
Round as the red eye of an eagle-owl, 

Under the half-dead sunset glared ; and shouts 780 

Ascended, and there brake a servingman 
Flying from out of the black wood, and crying, 
" They have bound my lord to cast him in the mere." 
Then Gareth, " Bound am I to right the wrong'd, 
But straitlier bound am I to bide with thee." 785 

And when the damsel spake contemptuously, 
"Lead, and I follow," Gareth cried again, 
" Follow, I lead ! " so down among the pines 
He plunged ; and there, black-shadow'd nigh the mere, 
And mid-thigh-deep in bulrushes and reed, 790 

Saw six tall men haling a seventh along, 
A stone about his neck to drown him in it. 
Three with good blows he quieted, but three 
Fled thro' the pines ; and Gareth loosed the stone 
From off his neck, then in the mere beside 795 

Tumbled it ; oilily bubbled up the mere. 
Last, Gareth loosed his bonds and on free feet 
Set him, a stalwart baron, Arthur's friend. 

" Well that ye came, or else these caitiff rogues 
Had wreak'd themselves on me ; good cause is theirs 800 
To hate me, for my wont hath ever been 
To catch my thief, and then like vermin here 
Drown him, and with a stone about his neck ; 
And under this wan water many of them 



28 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Lie rotting, but at night let go the stone, 805 

And rise, and flickering in a grimly light 

Dance on the mere. Good now, ye have saved a life 

Worth somewhat as the cleanser of this wood. 

And fain would I reward thee worshipfully. 

What guerdon will ye ? " 

Gareth sharply spake : 810 

" None ! for the deed's sake have I done the deed, 
In uttermost obedience to the King. 
But wilt thou yield this damsel harborage ? " 

Whereat the baron saying, " I well believe 
, You be of Arthur's Table," a light laugh 815 

Broke from Lynette : " Ay, truly of a truth, 
And in a sort, being Arthur's kitchen-knave ! — 
But deem not I accept thee aught the more, 
Scullion, for running sharply with thy spit 
Down on a rout of craven foresters. 820 

A thresher with his flail had scatter'd them. 
Nay — for thou smellest of the kitchen still. 
But an this lord will yield us harborage, 
Well." 

So she spake. A league beyond the wood, 
All in a full-fair manor and a rich, g 25 

His towers, where that day a feast had been 
Held in high hall, and many a viand left, 
And many a costly cate, received the three. 
And there they placed a peacock in his pride 
Before the damsel, and the baron set 830 

Gareth beside her, but at once she rose. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 29 

" Meseems, that here is much discourtesy, 
Setting this knave, Lord Baron, at my side. 
Hear me — this morn I stood in Arthur's hall, 
And pray'd the King would grant me Lancelot 835 

To fight the brotherhood of Day and Night — 
The last a monster unsubduable 
Of any save of him for whom I call'd — 
Suddenly bawls this frontless kitchen-knave, 
' The quest is mine ; thy kitchen-knave am I, 840 

And mighty thro' thy meats and drinks am I.' 
Then Arthur all at once gone mad replies, 
'Go therefore/ and so gives the quest to him — 
Him — here — a villain fitter to stick swine 
Than ride abroad redressing women's wrong, 845 

Or sit beside a noble gentlewoman." 

Then half-ashamed and part-amazed, the lord 
Now look'd at one and now at other, left 
The damsel by the peacock in his pride, 
And, seating Gareth at another board, 850 

Sat down beside him, ate and then began : 

" Friend, whether thou be kitchen-knave, or not, 
Or whether it be the maiden's fantasy, 
And whether she be mad, or else the King, 
Or both or neither, or thyself be mad, 855 

I ask not : but thou strikest a strong stroke, 
For strong thou art and goodly therewithal 
And saver of my life ; and therefore now, 
For here be mighty men to joust with, weigh 
Whether thou wilt not with thy damsel back 860 

To crave again Sir Lancelot of the King. 
Thy pardon ; I but speak for thine avail, 
The saver of my life." 



30 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 



And Gareth said, 
" Full pardon, but I follow up the quest, 
Despite of Day and Night and Death and Hell." 865 

So when, next morn, the lord whose life he saved 
Had, some brief space, convey'd them on their way 
And left them with God-speed, Sir Gareth spake, 
" Lead, and I follow." Haughtily she replied : 

" I fly no more : I allow thee for an hour. 870 

Lion and stoat have isled together, knave, 
In time of flood. Nay, furthermore, methinks 
Some ruth is mine for thee. Back wilt thou, fool ? 
For hard by here is one will overthrow 
And slay thee ; then will I to court again, 875 

And shame the King for only yielding me 
My champion from the ashes of his hearth." 

To whom Sir Gareth answer'd courteously : 
" Say thou thy say, and I will do my deed. 
Allow me for mine hour, and thou wilt find 88c 

My fortunes all as fair as hers who lay 
Among the ashes and wedded the King's son." 

Then to the shore of one of those long loops 
Wherethro' the serpent river coiPd, they came. 
Rough-thicketed were the banks and steep ; the stream 885 
Full, narrow ; this a bridge of single arc 
Took at a leap ; and on the further side 
Arose a silk pavilion, gay with gold 
In streaks and rays, and all Lent-lily in hue, 
Save that the dome was purple, and above, 89c 

Crimson, a slender banneret fluttering. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 31 

And therebefore the lawless warrior paced 

Unarm'd, and calling, " Damsel, is this he, 

The champion thou hast brought from Arthur's hall ? 

For whom we let thee pass." "Nay, nay," she said, 895 

" Sir Morning-Star. The King in utter scorn 

Of thee and thy much folly hath sent thee here 

His kitchen-knave : and look thou to thyself: 

See that he fall not on thee suddenly, 

And slay thee unarm'd ; he is not knight but knave." 900 

Then at his call, " O daughters of the Dawn, 
And servants of the Morning-Star, approach, 
Arm me," from out the silken curtain-folds 
Bare-footed and bare-headed three fair girls 
In gilt and rosy raiment came : their feet 905 

In dewy grasses glisten'd ; and the hair 
All over glanced with dewdrop or with gem 
Like sparkles in the stone Avanturine. 
These arm'd him in blue arms, and gave a shield 
Blue also, and thereon the morning star. 910 

And Gareth silent gazed upon the knight, 
Who stood a moment, ere his horse was brought, 
Glorying ; and in the stream beneath him shone, 
Immingled with Heaven's azure waveringly, 
The gay pavilion and the naked feet, 915 

His arms, the rosy raiment, and the star. 

Then she that watch'd him : " Wherefore stare ye so ? 
Thou shakest in thy fear : there yet is time : 
Flee down the valley before he get to horse. 
Who will cry shame ? Thou art not knight but knave." 9 20 

Said Gareth : " Damsel, whether knave or knight, 
Far liefer had I fight a score of times 



32 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Than hear thee so missay me and revile. 

Fair words were best for him who fights for thee ; 

But truly foul are better, for they send 925 

That strength of anger thro' mine arms, I know 

That I shall overthrow him." 

And he that bore 
The star, when mounted, cried from o'er the bridge : 
"A kitchen-knave, and sent in scorn of me ! 
Such fight not I, but answer scorn with scorn. 930 

For this were shame to do him further wrong 
Than set him on his feet, and take his horse 
And arms, and so return him to the King. 
Come, therefore, leave thy lady lightly, knave. 
Avoid : for it beseemeth not a knave 935 

To ride with such a lady." 

" Dog, thou liest ! 
I spring from loftier lineage than thine own." 
He spake ; and all at fiery speed the two 
Shock'd on the central bridge, and either spear 
Bent but not brake, and either knight at once, 940 

Hurl'd as a stone from out of a catapult 
Beyond the horse's crupper and the bridge, 
Fell, as if dead ; but quickly rose and drew, 
And Gareth lash'd so fiercely with his brand 
He drave his enemy backward down the bridge, 945 

The damsel crying, " Well-stricken, kitchen-knave ! " 
Till Gareth's shield was cloven ; but one stroke 
Laid him that clove it grovelling on the ground. 

Then cried the fallen, " Take not my life : I yield." 
And Gareth, " So this damsel ask it of me 95 

Good — I accord it easily as a grace." 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 33 

She reddening, " Insolent scullion ! I of thee ? 

I bound to thee for any favor ask'd ! " 

" Then shall he die." And Gareth there unlaced 

His helmet as to slay him, but she shriek'd, 955 

" Be not so hardy, scullion, as to slay 

One nobler than thyself." " Damsel, thy charge 

Is an abounding pleasure to me. Knight, 

Thy life is thine at her command. Arise 

And quickly pass to Arthur's hall, and say 960 

His kitchen-knave hath sent thee. See thou crave 

His pardon for thy breaking of his laws. 

Myself when I return will plead for thee. 

Thy shield is mine — -farewell; and, damsel, thou, 

Lead, and I follow.'' 

And fast away she fled ; 965 

Then when he came upon her, spake : " Methought, 
Knave, when I watch'd thee striking on the bridge, 
The savor of thy kitchen came upon me 
A little faintlier : but the wind hath changed ; 
I scent it twenty-fold." And then she sang, 970 

"<0 morning star' —not that tall felon there, 
Whom thou, by sorcery or unhappiness 
Or some device, hast foully overthrown, — 
*0 morning star that smilest in the blue, 
O star, my morning dream hath proven true, 975 

Smile sweetly, thou ! my love hath smiled on me.' 

" But thou begone, take counsel, and away, 
For hard by here is one that guards a ford — 
The second brother in their fool's parable — 
Will pay thee all thy wages, and to boot. 980 

Care not for shame : thou art not knight but knave." 



34 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 



To whom Sir Gareth answer'd, laughingly : 
" Parables ? Hear a parable of the knave. 
When I was kitchen-knave among the rest, 
Fierce was the hearth, and one of my co-mates 985 

Own'd a rough dog, to whom he cast his coat, 
1 Guard it/ and there was none to meddle with it. 
And such a coat art thou, and thee the King 
Gave me to guard, and such a dog am I, 

To worry, and not to flee ; and — knight or knave — 990 

The knave that doth thee service as full knight 
Is all as good, meseems, as any knight 
Toward thy sister's freeing." 

" Ay, Sir Knave ! 
Ay, knave, because thou strikest as a knight, 
Being but knave, I hate thee all the more." 995 

"Fair damsel, you should worship me the more, 
That, being but knave, I threw thine enemies." 

"Ay, ay," she said, "but thou shalt meet thy match." 

So when they touch'd the second river-loop, 
Huge on a high red horse, and all in mail 10c 

Burnish'd to blinding, shone the Noonday Sun, 
Beyond a raging shallow. As if the flower 
That blows a globe of after arrowlets 
Ten thousand-fold had grown, flash'd the fierce shield, 
All sun ; and Gareth's eyes had flying blots 1005 

Before them when he turn'd from watching him. 
He from beyond the roaring shallow roar'd, 
"What doest thou, brother, in my marches here ?" 
And she athwart the shallow shrilPd again, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 35 

" Here is a kitchen-knave from Arthur's hall 1010 

Hath overthrown thy brother, and hath his arms." 

"Ugh!" cried the Sun, and, vizoring up a red 

And cipher face of rounded foolishness, 

Push'd horse across the foamings of the ford, 

Whom Gareth met mid-stream; no room was there 1015 

For lance or tourney-skill ; four strokes they struck 

With sword, and these were mighty ; the new knight 

Had fear he might be shamed ; but as the Sun 

Heaved up a ponderous arm to strike the fifth, 

The hoof of his horse slipt in the stream, the stream 1020 

Descended, and the Sun was wash'd away. 

Then Gareth laid his lance athwart the ford ; 
So drew him home ; but he that fought no more, 
As being all bone-batter'd on the rock, 

Yielded ; and Gareth sent him to the King. I02 $ 

" Myself when I return will plead for thee. 
Lead, and I follow." Quietly she led. 
"Hath not the good wind, damsel, changed again?" 
"Nay, not a point; nor art thou victor here. 
There lies a ridge of slate across the ford ; ^30 

His horse thereon stumbled — ay, for I saw it. 

"'0 sun' — not this strong fool whom thou, Sir Knave, 
Hast overthrown thro' mere unhappiness — 
' O sun, that wakenest all to bliss or pain, 

O moon, that layest all to sleep again, 1035 

Shine sweetly: twice my love hath smiled on me.' 

" What knowest thou of love-song or of love? 
Nay, nay, God wot, so thou wert nobly born, 
Thou hast a pleasant presence. Yea, perchance, — 



3 6 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

"'0 dewy flowers that open to the sun, 1040 

O dewy flowers that close when day is done, 
Blow sweetly : twice my love hath smiled on me.' 

" What knowest thou of flowers, except, belike, 
To garnish meats with ? hath not our good King 
Who lent me thee, the flower of kitchendom, 1045 

A foolish love for flowers ? what stick ye round 
The pasty ? wherewithal deck the boar's head ? 
Flowers ? nay, the boar hath rosemaries and bay. 

"'0 birds that warble to the morning sky, 
O birds that warble as the day goes by, 1050 

Sing sweetly : twice my love hath smiled on me.' 

"What knowest thou of birds, lark, mavis, merle, 
Linnet ? what dream ye when they utter forth 
May-music growing with the growing light, 
Their sweet sun-worship ? these be for the snare — 1055 
So runs thy fancy — these be for the spit, 
Larding and basting. See thou have not now 
Larded thy last, except thou turn and fly. 
There stands the third fool of their allegory." 

For there beyond a bridge of treble bow, 1060 

All in a rose-red from the west, and all 
Naked it seem'd, and glowing in the broad 
Deep-dimpled current underneath, the knight 
That named himself the Star of Evening stood. 

And Gareth, " Wherefore waits the madman there 1065 
Naked in open dayshine ?" "Nay," she cried, 
"Not naked, only wrapt in harden'd skins 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 37 

That fit him like his own ; and so ye cleave 
His armor off him, these will turn the blade." 

Then the third brother shouted o'er the bridge, 1070 

"O brother-star, why shine ye here so low? 
Thy ward is higher up : but have ye slain 
The damsel's champion ? " and the damsel cried : 

"No star of thine, but shot from Arthur's heaven 
With all disaster unto thine and thee ! i j$ 

For both thy younger brethren have gone down 
Before this youth ; and so wilt thou, Sir Star ; 
Art thou not old ? " 

" Old, damsel, old and hard, 
Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys." 
Said Gareth, "Old, and over-bold in brag! I0 8o 

But that same strength which threw the Morning Star 
Can throw the Evening." 

Then that other blew 
A hard and deadly note upon the horn. 
"Approach and arm me ! " With slow steps from out 
An old storm-beaten, russet, many-stain'd 1085 

Pavilion, forth a grizzled damsel came, 
And arm'd him in old arms, and brought a helm 
With but a drying evergreen for crest, 
And gave a shield whereon the star of even 
Half-tarnish'd and half-bright, his emblem, shone. 1090 

But when it glitter'd o'er the saddle-bow, 
They madly hurl'd together on the bridge ; 
And Gareth overthrew him, lighted, drew, 
There met him drawn, and overthrew him again, 
But up like fire he started : and as oft 1095 



3« 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 



As Gareth brought him grovelling on his knees, 
So many a time he vaulted up again ; 
Till Gareth panted hard, and his great heart, 
Foredooming all his trouble was in vain, 

Labor'd within him, for he seem'd as one hoc 

That all in later, sadder age begins 
To war against ill uses of a life, 
But these from all his life arise, and cry, 
"Thou hast made us lords, and canst not put us down! " 
He half despairs; so Gareth seem'd to strike 1105 

Vainly, the damsel clamoring all the while, 
"Well done, knave-knight, well stricken, O good knight- 
knave — 
O knave, as noble as any of all the knights — 
Shame me not, shame me not. I have prophesied — 
Strike, thou art worthy of the Table Round — 11 10 

His arms are old, he trusts the harden'd skin- 
Strike — strike — the wind will never change again." 
And Gareth hearing ever stronglier smote, 
And hew'd great pieces of his armor off him, 
But lash'd in vain against the harden'd skin, 11 15 

And could not wholly bring him under, more 
Than loud Southwesterns, rolling ridge on ridge, 
The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and springs 
For ever ; till at length Sir Gareth's brand 

Clash'd his, and brake it utterly to the hilt. 1120 

" I have thee now ; " but forth that other sprang, 
And, all unknightlike, writhed his wiry arms 
Around him, till he felt, despite his mail, 
Strangled, but straining even his uttermost 

Cast, and so hurPd him headlong o'er the bridge 1125 

Down to the river, sink or swim, and cried, 
k ' Lead, and I follow." 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 39 

But the damsel said : 
" I lead no longer ; ride thou at my side ; 
Thou art the kingliest of all kitchen-knaves. 

" ' O trefoil, sparkling on the rainy plain, n 30 

O rainbow with three colors after rain, 
Shine sweetly : thrice my love hath smiled on me.' 

" Sir, — and, good faith, I fain had added — Knight, 
But that I heard thee call thyself a knave, — 
Shamed am I that I so rebuked, reviled, 1135 

Missaid thee ; noble I am ; and thought the King 
Scorn'd me and mine ; and now thy pardon, friend, 
For thou hast ever answer'd courteously, 
And wholly bold thou art, and meek withal 
As any of Arthur's best, but, being knave, 1140 

Hast mazed my wit : I marvel what thou art." 

"Damsel," he said, "you be not all to blame, 
Saving that you mistrusted our good King 
Would handle scorn, or yield you, asking, one 
Not fit to cope your quest. You said your say ; 1145 

Mine answer was my deed. Good sooth ! I hold 
He scarce is knight, yea but half-man, nor meet 
To fight for gentle damsel, he, who lets 
His heart be stirr'd with any foolish heat 
At any gentle damsel's waywardness. 1150 

Shamed ? care not ! thy foul sayings fought for me : 
And seeing now thy words are fair, methinks 
There rides no knight, not Lancelot, his great self, 
Hath force to quell me." 

Nigh upon that hour 
When the lone hern forgets his melancholy, 11 55 



4 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Lets down his other leg, and stretching dreams 

Of goodly supper in the distant pool, 

Then turn'd the noble damsel smiling at him, 

And told him of a cavern hard at hand, 

Where bread and baken meats and good red wine 1160 

Of Southland, which the Lady Lyonors 

Had sent her coming champion, waited him. 

Anon they past a narrow comb wherein 
Were slabs of rock with figures, knights on horse 
Sculptured, and deckt in slowly- waning hues. n 65 

" Sir Knave, my knight, a hermit once was here, 
Whose holy hand hath fashion'd on the rock 
The war of Time against the soul of man, 
And yon four fools have suck'd their allegory 
From these damp walls, and taken but the form. n 70 

Know ye not these ? " and Gareth lookt and read — 
In letters like to those the vexillary 
Hath left crag-carven o'er the streaming Gelt — 
" Phosphorus " then " Meridies," — " Hesperus " — 
« Nox " — " Mors," beneath five figures, armed men, 1 175 
Slab after slab, their faces forward all, 
And running down the Soul, a shape that fled 
With broken wings, torn raiment, and loose hair, 
For help and shelter to the hermit's cave. 
"Follow the faces, and we find it. Look, 1180 

Who comes behind ? " 

For one — delay'd at first 
Thro' helping back the dislocated Kay 
To Camelot, then by what thereafter chanced, 
The damsel's headlong error thro' the wood — 
Sir Lancelot, having swum the river-loops — 1185 

His blue shield-lions cover 'd — softly drew 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 41 

Behind the twain, and when he saw the star 

Gleam, on Sir Gareth's turning to him, cried, 

" Stay, felon knight, I avenge me for my friend." 

And Gareth crying prick'd against the cry; 11 90 

But when they closed — in a moment — at one touch 

Of that skilPd spear, the wonder of the world — 

Went sliding down so easily, and fell, 

That when he found the grass within his hands 

He laugh'd; the laughter jarr'd upon Lynette : 1195 

Harshly she ask'd him, " Shamed and overthrown, 

And tumbled back into the kitchen-knave, 

Why laugh ye ? that ye blew your boast in vain ? " 

"Nay, noble damsel, but that I, the son 

Of old King Lot and good Queen Bellicent, 1200 

And victor of the bridges and the ford, 

And knight of Arthur, here lie thrown by whom 

I know not, all thro' mere unhappiness — 

Device and sorcery and unhappiness — 

Out, sword ; we are thrown ! " And Lancelot answer'd : 

"Prince, 1205 

O Gareth — thro' the mere unhappiness 
Of one who came to help thee, not to harm, 
Lancelot, and all as glad to find thee whole 
As on the day when Arthur knighted him. ,, 

Then Gareth : " Thou — Lancelot ! — thine the hand 1210 

That threw me ? An some chance to mar the boast 
Thy brethren of thee make — which could not chance — 
Had sent thee down before a lesser spear, 
Shamed had I been, and sad — O Lancelot — thou ! " 

Whereat the maiden, petulant : " Lancelot, 1215 

Why came ye not, when call'd ? and wherefore now 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

( !ome ye, not calPd ? I gloried in my knave, 
Who being still rebuked would answer still 

urteous as any knight — but now, if knight, 
The marvel dies, and leaves me fool'd and trick'd, 1220 

And only wondering wherefore played upon; 
And doubtful whether I and mine be scorn 'd. 
Where should be truth if not in Arthur's hall, 
In Arthur's presence? Knight, knave, prince and fool, 
1 hate thee and for ever." 

And Lancelot said : 1225 

" Blessed be thou, Sir Gareth! knight art thou 
To the King's best wish. O damsel, be you wise 
To call him shamed who is but overthrown? 
Thrown have I been, nor once, but many a time. 
Victor from vanquish'd issues at the last, 1230 

And overthrower from being overthrown. 
With sword we have not striven ; and thy good horse 
And thou are weary; yet not less I felt 
Thy manhood thro' that wearied lance of thine. 
Well hast thou done; for all the stream is freed, 1235 

And thou hast wreak'd his justice on his foes, 
And when reviled hast answer'd graciously, 
And makest merry when overthrown. Prince, knight, 
Hail, knight and prince, and of our Table Round! " 

And then when turning to Lynette he told 1240 

The- tale of Gareth, petulantly she said: 
"Ay, well — ay, well — for worse than being fool'd 

thers, is to fool one's self. A cave, 
Sir Lancelot, is hard by, with meats and drinks 
And forage for the horse, and flint for fire. 1245 

But .ill about it ilies a honeysuckle. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 43 

Seek, till we find." And when they sought and found, 

Sir Gareth drank and ate, and all his life 

Past into sleep ; on whom the maiden gazed : 

" Sound sleep be thine ! sound cause to sleep hast thou. 1250 

Wake lusty! Seem I not as tender to him 

As any mother ? Ay, but such a one 

As all day long hath rated at her child, 

And vext his day, but blesses him asleep — 

Good lord, how sweetly smells the honeysuckle 1255 

In the hush'd night, as if the world were one 

Of utter peace, and love, and gentleness ! 

O Lancelot, Lancelot,'' — and she clapt her hands — 

" Full merry am I to find my goodly knave 

Is knight and noble. See now, sworn have I, 1260 

Else yon black felon had not let mc pass, 

To bring thee back to do the battle with him. 

Thus an thou goest, he will fight thee first ; 

Who doubts thee victor ? so will my knight-knave 

Miss the full flower of this accomplishment. " 1265 

Said Lancelot : " Peradventure he you name 
May know my shield. Let Gareth, an he will, 
Change his for mine, and take my charger, fresh, 
Not to be spurr'd, loving the battle as well 
As he that rides him." " Lancelot-like," she said, 1270 

" Courteous in this, Lord Lancelot, as in all." 

And Gareth, wakening, fiercely clutch'd the shield : 
" Ramp, ye lance-splintering lions, on whom all spears 
Are rotten sticks ! ye seem agape to roar ! 
Yea, ramp and roar at leaving of your lord ! — 1275 

Care not, good beasts, so well I care for you. 
O noble Lancelot, from my hold on these 



44 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 



Streams virtue — fire — thro' one that will not shame 
Even the shadow of Lancelot under shield. 
Hence : let us go." 

Silent the silent field 1280 

They traversed. Arthur's Harp tho' summer-wan, 
In counter motion to the clouds, allured 
The glance of Gareth dreaming on his liege. 
A star shot : " Lo," said Gareth, " the foe falls ! " 
An owl whoopt : " Hark the victor pealing there ! " 1285 

Suddenly she that rode upon his left 
Clung to the shield that Lancelot lent him, crying: 
" Yield, yield him this again ; 't is he must fight : 
I curse the tongue that all thro' yesterday 
Reviled thee, and hath wrought on Lancelot now 1290 

To lend thee horse and shield: wonders ye have done; 
Miracles ye cannot : here is glory enow 
In having flung three : I see thee maim'd, 
Mangled : I swear thou canst not fling the fourth." 

" And wherefore, damsel ? tell me all ye know. 1295 

You cannot scare me ; nor rough face, or voice, 
Brute bulk of limb, or boundless savagery 
Appal me from the quest." 

" Nay, prince," she cried, 
" God wot, I never look'd upon the face, 

Seeing he never rides abroad by day ; 1300 

But watch'd him have I like a phantom pass 
Chilling the night : nor have I heard the voice. 
Always he made his mouthpiece of a page 
Who came and went, and still reported him 
As closing in himself the strength of ten, 1305 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 45 

And when his anger tare him, massacring 

Man, woman, lad, and girl — yea, the soft babe! 

Some hold that he hath swallow'd infant flesh, 

Monster ! O prince, I went for Lancelot first, 

The quest is Lancelot's : give him back the shield." 1310 

Said Gareth laughing, " An he fight for this, 
Belike he wins it as the better man : 
Thus — and not else ! " 

But Lancelot on him urged 
All the devisings of their chivalry 

When one might meet a mightier than himself; 1315 

How best to manage horse, lance, sword, and shield, 
And so fill up the gap where force might fail 
With skill and fineness. Instant were his words. 

Then Gareth : " Here be rules. I know but one — 
To dash against mine enemy and to win. 1320 

Yet have I watch'd thee victor in the joust, 
And seen thy way." " Heaven help thee ! " sigh'd Lynette. 

Then for a space, and under cloud that grew 
To thunder-gloom palling all stars, they rode 
In converse till she made her palfrey halt, 1325 

Lifted an arm, and softly whisper'd, " There." 
And all the three were silent seeing, pitch'd 
Beside the Castle Perilous on flat field, 
A huge pavilion like a mountain peak 

Sunder the glooming crimson on the marge, 1330 

Black, with black banner, and a long black horn 
Beside it hanging ; which Sir Gareth graspt, 
And so, before the two could hinder him, 



4 6 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Sent all his heart and breath thro' all the horn. 

Echo'd the walls, a light twinkled; anon 1335 

Came lights and lights, and once again he blew; 

Whereon were hollow tramplings up and down 

And muffled voices heard, and shadows past ; 

Till high above him, circled with her maids, 

The Lady Lyonors at a window stood, 1340 

Beautiful among lights, and waving to him 

White hands and courtesy ; but when the prince 

Three times had blown — after long hush — at last — 

The huge pavilion slowly yielded up, 

Thro' those black foldings, that which housed therein. 1345 

High on a night-black horse, in night-black arms, 

With white breast-bone, and barren ribs of Death, 

And crown'd with fleshless laughter — some ten steps — 

In the half-light — thro' the dim dawn — advanced 

The monster, and then paused, and spake no word. 1350 

But Gareth spake and all indignantly : 
" Fool, for thou hast, men say, the strength of ten, 
Canst thou not trust the limbs thy God hath given, 
But must, to make the terror of thee more, 
Trick thyself out in ghastly imageries 1355 

Of that which Life hath done with, and the clod, 
Less dull than thou, will hide with mantling flowers 
As if for pity ? " But he spake no word ; 
Which set the horror higher : a maiden swoon'd ; 
The Lady Lyonors wrung her hands and wept, 1360 

As doom'd to be the bride of Night and Death ; 
Sir Gareth's head prickled beneath his helm ; 
And even Sir Lancelot thro' his warm blood felt 
Ice strike, and all that mark'd him were aghast. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 47 

At once Sir Lancelot's charger fiercely neigh'd, 1365 

And Death's dark war-horse bounded forward with him. 
Then those that did not blink the terror saw 
That Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose. 
But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull. 
Half fell to right and half to left and lay. 1370 

Then with a stronger buffet he clove the helm 
As throughly as the skull ; and out from this 
Issued the bright face of a blooming boy 
Fresh as a flower new-born, and crying, " Knight, 
Slay me not: my three brethren bade me do it, 1375 

To make a horror all about the house, 
And stay the world from Lady Lyonors ; 
They never dream'd the passes would be past." 
Answer'd Sir Gareth graciously to one 

Not many a moon his younger, "My fair child, 1380 

What madness made thee challenge the chief knight 
Of Arthur's hall?" "Fair Sir, they bade me do it. 
They hate the King and Lancelot, the King's friend ; 
They hoped to slay him somewhere on the stream, 
They never dream'd the passes could be past." 1385 

Then sprang the happier day from underground; 
And Lady Lyonors and her house, with dance 
And revel and song, made merry over Death, 
As being after all their foolish fears 

And horrors only proven a blooming boy. 1390 

So large mirth lived, and Gareth won the quest. 

And he that told the tale in older times 
Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, 
But he that told it later says Lynette. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 

Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, 
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, 
High in her chamber up a tower to the east 
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot; 
Which first she placed where morning's earliest ray 5 

Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam; 
Then fearing rust or soilure fashion'd for it 
A case of silk, and braided thereupon 
All the devices blazon'd on the shield 

In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, 10 

A border fantasy of branch and flower, 
And yellow-throated nestling in her nest. 
Nor rested thus content, but day by day, 
Leaving her household and good father, climb'd 
That eastern tower, and entering barr'd her door, 15 

Stript off the case, and read the naked shield, 
Now guess'd a hidden meaning in his arms, 
Now made a pretty history to herself 
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it, 
And every scratch a lance had made upon it, 20 

Conjecturing when and where : this cut is fresh ; 
That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle; 
That at Caerleon ; this at Camelot : 
And ah, God's mercy, what a stroke was there ! 
And here a thrust that might have kill'd, but God 25 

Broke the strong lance, and roll'd his enemy down, 
And saved him: so she lived in fantasy. 

49 



5o 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 



How came the lily maid by that good shield 
Of Lancelot, she that knew not even his name ? 
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt 30 

For the great diamond in the diamond jousts, 
Which Arthur had ordain'd, and by that name 
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize. 

For Arthur, long before they crown'd him king, 
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse, 35 

Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn. 
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave 
Like its own mists to all the mountain side : 
For here two brothers, one a king, had met 
And fought together; but their names were lost; 40 

And each had slain his brother at a blow; 
And down they fell and made the glen abhorr'd : 
And there they lay till all their bones were bleach'd, 
And lichen'd into color with the crags : 
And he that once was king had on a crown 45 

Of diamonds, one in front and four aside. 
And Arthur came, and laboring up the pass, 
All in a misty moonshine, unawares 
Had trodden that crown'd skeleton, and the skull 
Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown 
Roll'd into light, and turning on its rims 
Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn: 
And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught, 
And set it on his head, and in his heart 
Heard murmurs, "Lo, thou likewise shalt be king." 

Thereafter, when a king, he had the gems 
Pluck'd from the crown, and show'd them to his knights, 
Saying: " These jewels, whereupon I chanced 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 5 I 

Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the King's — 

For public use : henceforward let there be, 60 

Once every year, a joust for one of these : 

For so by nine years' proof we needs must learn 

Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow 

In use of arms and manhood, till we drive 

The heathen, who, some say, shall rule the land 65 

Hereafter, which God hinder ! " Thus he spoke : 

And eight years past, eight jousts had been, and still 

Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year, 

With purpose to present them to the Queen 

When all were won; but, meaning all at once 70 

To snare her royal fancy with a boon 

Worth half her realm, had never spoken word. 

Now for the central diamond and the last 
And largest, Arthur, holding then his court 

Hard on the river nigh the place which now 75 

Is this world's hugest, let proclaim a joust 
At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh 
Spake — for she had been sick — to Guinevere: 
"Are you so sick, my Queen, you cannot move 
To these fair jousts?" "Yea, lord," she said, "ye know it." 80 
"Then will ye miss," he answer'd, "the great deeds 
Of Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists, 
A sight ye love to look on." And the Queen 
Lifted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly 

On Lancelot, where he stood beside the King. 85 

He, thinking that he read her meaning there, 
"Stay with me, I am sick ; my love is more 
Than many diamonds," yielded; and a heart 
Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen — 
However much he yearn'd to make complete 90 



52 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

The tale of diamonds for his destined boon — 

Urged him to speak against the truth, and say, 

"Sir King, mine ancient wound is hardly whole, 

And lets me from the saddle ;" and the King 

Glanced first at him, then her, and went his way. 95 

No sooner gone than suddenly she began : 

" To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame ! 
Why go ye not to these fair jousts ? the knights 
Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd 
Will murmur, ' Lo the shameless ones, who take » 

Their pastime now the trustful King is gone ! ' " 
Then Lancelot, vext at having lied in vain: 
"Are ye so wise ? ye were not once so wise, 
My Queen, that summer when ye loved me first. 
Then of the crowd ye took no more account 105 

Than of the myriad cricket of the mead, 
When its own voice clings to each blade of grass, 
And every voice is nothing. As to knights, 
Them surely can I silence with all ease. 
But now my loyal worship is allow'd no 

Of all men : many a bard, without offence, 
Has link'd our names together in his lay, 
Lancelot, the flower of bravery, Guinevere, 
The pearl of beauty ; and our knights at feast 
Have pledged us in this union, while the King 115 

Would listen smiling. How then ? is there more ? 
Has Arthur spoken aught ? or would yourself, 
Now weary of my service and devoir, 
Henceforth be truer to your faultless lord ? " 

She broke into a little scornful laugh : 120 

"Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless King, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 53 

That passionate perfection, my good lord — 

But who can gaze upon the sun in heaven? 

He never spake word of reproach to me, 

He never had a glimpse of mine untruth, 125 

He cares not for me : only here to-day 

There gleamed a vague suspicion in his eyes : 

Some meddling rogue has tamper'd with him — else 

Rapt in this fancy of his Table Round, 

And swearing men to vows impossible, 130 

To make them like himself ; but, friend, to me 

He is all fault who hath no fault at all : 

For who loves me must have a touch of earth; 

The low sun makes the color : I am yours, 

Nor Arthur's, as ye know, save by the bond. 135 

And therefore hear my words : go to the jousts : 

The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our dream 

When sweetest ; and the vermin voices here 

May buzz so loud — we scorn them, but they sting." 

Then answer'd Lancelot, the chief of knights : 140 

"And with what face, after my pretext made, 
Shall I appear, O Queen, at Camelot, I 
Before a king who honors his own word 
As if it were his God's ? " 

" Yea," said the Queen, 
"A moral child without the craft to rule, 145 

Else had he not lost me : but listen to me, 
If I must find you wit : we hear it said 
That men go down before your spear at a touch, 
But knowing you are Lancelot ; your great name, 
This conquers : hide it therefore ; go unknown : 150 

Win ! by this kiss you will : and our true King 



54 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Will then allow your pretext, O my knight, 

As all for glory ; for to speak him true, 

Ye know right well, how meek soe'er he seem, 

No keener hunter after glory breathes. i^ 

He loves it in his knights more than himself ; 

They prove to him his work : win and return. " 

Then got Sir Lancelot suddenly to horse, 
Wroth at himself. Not willing to be known, 
He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare, 160 

Chose the green path that show'd the rarer foot, 
And there among the solitary downs, 
Full often lost in fancy, lost his way; 
Till as he traced a faintly-shadow'd track, 
That all in loops and links among the dales 165 

Ran to the Castle of Astolat, he saw 
Fired from the west, far on a hill, the towers. 
Thither he made, and blew the gateway horn. 
Then came an old, dumb, myriad-wrinkled man, 
Who let him into lodging and disarm'd. 170 

And Lancelot marvelPd at the wordless man ; 
And issuing found the Lord of Astolat 
With two strong sons, Sir Torre and Sir Lavaine, 
Moving to meet him in the castle court ; 
And close behind them stept the lily maid 175 

Elaine, his daughter : mother of the house 
There was not. Some light jest among them rose 
With laughter dying down as the great knight 
Approach'd them ; then the Lord of Astolat : 
" Whence comest thou my guest, and by what name 180 
Livest between the lips ? for by thy state 
And presence I might guess thee chief of those, 
After the King, who eat in Arthur's halls. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 55 

Him have I seen : the rest, his Table Round, 

Known as they are, to me they are unknown. " 185 

Then answer'd Lancelot, the chief of knights : 
" Known am I, and of Arthur's hall, and known, 
What I by mere mischance have brought, my shield. 
But since I go to joust as one unknown 
At Camelot for the diamond, ask me not ; 190 

Hereafter ye shall know me — and the shield — 
I pray you lend me one, if such you have, 
Blank, or at least with some device not mine." 

Then said the Lord of Astolat : " Here is Torre's : 
Hurt in his first tilt was my son, Sir Torre ; 195 

And so, God wot, his shield is blank enough. 
His ye can have." Then added plain Sir Torre, 
"Yea, since I cannot use it, ye may have it." 
Here laugh'd the father saying : " Fie, Sir Churl, 
Is that an answer for a noble knight ? 200 

Allow him ! but Lavaine, my younger here, 
He is so full of lustihood, he will ride, 
Joust for it, and win, and bring it in an hour, 
And set it in this damsel's golden hair, 
To make her thrice as wilful as before." 205 

" Nay, father, nay, good father, shame me not 
Before this noble knight," said young Lavaine, 
" For nothing. Surely I but play'd on Torre : 
He seem'd so sullen, vext he could not go : 
A jest, no more! for, knight, the maiden dreamt 210 

That some one put this diamond in her hand, 
And that it was too slippery to be held, 
And slipt and fell into some pool or stream, 



56 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

The castle-well, belike ; and then I said 

That if I went and if I fought and won it — 215 

But all was jest and joke among ourselves — 

Then must she keep it safelier. All was jest. 

But, father, give me leave, and if he will, 

To ride to Camelot with this noble knight : 

Win shall I not, but do my best to win ; 220 

Young as I am, yet would I do my best." 

" So ye will grace me," answer'd Lancelot, 
Smiling a moment, " with your fellowship 
O'er these waste downs whereon I lost myself, 
Then were I glad of you as guide and friend : 225 

And you shall win this diamond, — as I hear, 
It is a fair large diamond, — if ye may, 
And yield it to this maiden, if ye will." 
"A fair large diamond," added plain Sir Torre, 
"Such be for queens, and not for simple maids." 230 

Then she, who held her eyes upon the ground, 
Elaine, and heard her name so tost about, 
Flush'd slightly at the slight disparagement 
Before the stranger knight, who, looking at her, 
Full courtly, yet not falsely, thus return'd : 235 

" If what is fair be but for what is fair, 
And only queens are to be counted so, 
Rash were my judgment then, who deem this maid 
Might wear as fair a jewel as is on earth, 
Not violating the bond of like to like." 240 

He spoke and ceased : the lily maid Elaine, 
Won by the mellow voice before she look'd, 
Lifted her eyes and read his lineaments. 
The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 57 

In battle with the love he bare his lord, 245 

Had marr'd his face, and marked it ere his time. 

Another sinning on such heights with one, 

The flower of all the west and all the world, 

Had been the sleeker for it ; but in him' 

His mood was often like a fiend, and rose 250 

And drove him into wastes and solitudes 

For agony, who was yet a living soul. 

Marr'd as he was, he seem'd the goodliest man 

That ever among ladies ate in hall, 

And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. 255 

However marr'd, of more than twice her years, 

Seam'd with an ancient sword-cut on the cheek, 

And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes 

And loved him, with that love which was her doom. 

m 

Then the great knight, the darling of the court, 260 

Loved of the loveliest, into that rude hall 
Stept with all grace, and not with half disdain 
Hid under grace, as in a smaller time, 
But kindly man moving among his kind : 
Whom they with meats and vintage of their best 265 

And talk and minstrel melody entertain J d. 
And much they ask'd of court and Table Round, 
And ever well and readily answer'd he ; 
But Lancelot, when they glanced at Guinevere, 
Suddenly speaking of the wordless man, 270 

Heard from the baron that, ten years before, 
The heathen caught and reft him of his tongue. 
"He learnt and warn'd me of their fierce design 
Against my house, and him they caught and maim'd ; 
But I, my sons, and little daughter fled 275 

From bonds or death, and dwelt among the woods 



58 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

By the great river in a boatman's hut. 

Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke 

The Pagan yet once more on Badon hill." 

"O there, great lord, doubtless," Lavaine said, rapt 280 
By all the sweet and sudden passion of youth 
Toward greatness in its elder, "you have fought. 
O tell us — for we live apart — you know 
Of Arthur's glorious wars." And Lancelot spoke 
And answer'd him at full, as having been 
With Arthur in the fight which all day long 
Rang by the white mouth of the violent Glem ; 
And in the four loud battles by the shore 
Of Duglas; that on Bassa; then the war 
That thunder'd in and out the gloomy skirts 290 

Of Celidon the forest ; and again 
By Castle Gurnion, where the glorious King 
Had on his cuirass worn our Lady's Head, 
Carved of one emerald centred in a sun 
Of silver rays, that lighten'd as he breathed; 295 

And at Caerleon had he helped his lord, 
When the strong neighings of the wild white Horse 
Set every gilded parapet shuddering ; 
And up in Agned-Cathregonion too, 

And down the waste sand-shores of Trath Treroit, 300 

Where many a heathen fell ; "and on the mount 
Of Badon I myself beheld the King 
Charge at the head of all his Table Round, 
And all his legion crying Christ and him, 
And brake them; and I saw him, after, stand 305 

High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume 
Red as the rising sun with heathen blood, 
And seeing me, with a great voice he cried, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 59 

'They are broken, they are broken F for the King, 

However mild he seems at home, nor cares 310 

For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts — 

For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs, 

Saying his knights are better men than he — 

Yet in this heathen war the fire of God 

Fills him : I never saw his like; there lives 315 

No greater leader." 

While he utter'd this, 
Low to her own heart said the lily maid, 
" Save your great self, fair lord ;" and when he fell 
From talk of war to traits of pleasantry — 
Being mirthful he, but in a stately kind — 320 

She still took note that when the living smile 
Died from his lips, across him came a cloud 
Of melancholy severe, from which again, 
Whenever in her hovering to and fro 

The lily maid had striven to make him cheer, 325 

There brake a sudden-beaming tenderness 
Of manners and of nature : and she thought 
That all was nature, all, perchance, for her. 
And all night long his face before her lived, 
As when a painter, poring on a face, 330 

Divinely thro' all hindrance finds the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his face, 
The shape and color of a mind and life, 
Lives for his children, ever at its best 

And fullest ; so the face before her lived, 335 

Dark-splendid, speaking in the silence, full 
Of noble things, and held her from her sleep 7 
Till rathe she rose, half-cheated in the thought 
She needs must bid farewell to sweet Lavaine. 



60 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

First as in fear, step after step, she stole 340 

Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating : 

Anon, she heard Sir Lancelot cry in the court, 

"This shield, my friend, where is it?" and Lavaine 

Past inward, as she came from out the tower. 

There to his proud horse Lancelot turn'd, and smooth'd 345 

The glossy shoulder, humming to himself. 

Half-envious of the flattering hand, she drew 

Nearer and stood. He look'd, and, more amazed 

Than if seven men had set upon him, saw 

The maiden standing in the dewy light. ' 350 

He had not dream'd she was so beautiful. 

Then came on him a sort of sacred fear, 

For silent, tho' he greeted her, she stood 

Rapt on his face as if it were a god's. 

Suddenly flash'd on her a wild desire 355 

That he should wear her favor at the tilt. 

She braved a riotous heart in asking for it. 

"Fair lord, whose name I know not — noble it is 

I well believe, the noblest — will you wear 

My favor at this tourney ? " " Nay," said he, 360 

" Fair lady, since I never yet have worn 

Favor of any lady in the lists. 

Such is my wont, as those who know me know." 

"Yea, so," she answer'd ; "then in wearing mine 

Needs must be lesser likelihood, noble lord, 365 

That those who know should know you." And he turn'd 

Her counsel up and down within his mind, 

And found it true, and answer'd : " True, my child. 

Well, I will wear it : fetch it out to me : 

What is it ? " and she told him, "A red sleeve 37° 

Broider'd with pearls," and brought it : then he bound 

Her token on his helmet, with a smile 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 6l 

Saying, " I never yet have done so much 

For any maiden living," and the blood 

Sprang to her face and fill'd her with delight ; 375 

But left her all the paler when Lavaine 

Returning brought the yet-unblazon'd shield, 

His brother's ; which he gave to Lancelot, 

Who parted with his own to fair Elaine : 

" Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield 380 

In keeping till I come." "A grace to me," 

She answer'd, " twice to-day. I am your squire ! " 

Whereat Lavaine said laughingly: "Lily maid, 

For fear our people call you lily maid 

In earnest, let me bring your color back ; 385 

Once, twice, and thrice : now get you hence to bed : " 

So kiss'd her, and Sir Lancelot his own hand, 

And thus they moved away : she stay'd a minute, 

Then made a sudden step to the gate, and there — 

Her bright hair blown about the serious face 390 

Yet rosy kindled with her brother's kiss — 

Paused by the gateway, standing near the shield 

In silence, while she watch'd their arms far-off 

Sparkle, until they dipt below the downs. 

Then to her tower she climb'd, and took the shield, 395 

There kept it, and so lived in fantasy. 

Meanwhile the new companions past away 
Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs, 
To where Sir Lancelot knew there lived a knight 
Not far from Camelot, now for forty years 400 

A hermit, who had pray'd, labor'd and pray'd, 
And ever laboring had scoop'd himself 
In the white rock a chapel and a hall 
On massive columns, like a shore-cliff cave, 



62 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And cells and chambers : all were fair and dry ; 

The green light from the meadows underneath 

Struck up and lived along the milky roofs ; 

And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees 

And poplars made a noise of falling showers. 

And thither wending there that night they bode. 410 

But when the next day broke from underground, 
And shot red fire and shadows thro' the cave, 
They rose, heard mass, broke fast, and rode away. 
Then Lancelot saying, " Hear, but hold my name 
Hidden, you ride with Lancelot of the Lake," 415 

Abash'd Lavaine, whose instant reverence, 
Dearer to true young hearts than their own praise, 
But left him leave to stammer, " Is it indeed ? " 
And after muttering, " The great Lancelot," 
At last he got his breath and answer'd : "One, 420 

One have I seen — that other, our liege lord, 
The dread Pendragon, Britain's King of kings, 
Of whom the people talk mysteriously, 
He will be there — then were I stricken blind 
That minute, I might say that I had seen." 

So spake Lavaine, and when they reached the lists 
By Camelot in the meadow, let his eyes 
Run thro' the peopled gallery which half round 
Lay like a rainbow fallen upon the grass, 
Until they found the clear-faced King, who sat 430 

Robed in red samite, easily to be known, 
Since to his crown the golden dragon clung, 
And down his robe the dragon writhed in gold, 
And from the carven-work behind him crept 
Two dragons gilded, sloping down to make 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 63 

Arms for his chair, while all the rest of them 

Thro' knots and loops and folds innumerable 

Fled ever thro' the woodwork, till they found 

The new design wherein they lost themselves, 

Yet with all ease, so tender was the work : 440 

And, in the costly canopy o'er him set, 

Blazed the last diamond of the nameless king. 

Then Lancelot answer'd young Lavaine and said : 
" Me you call great : mine is the firmer seat, 
The truer lance : but there is many a youth 445 

Now crescent, who will come to all I am 
And overcome it ; and in me there dwells 
No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 
Of greatness to know well I am not great : 
There is the man." And Lavaine gaped upon him 450 

As on a thing miraculous, and anon 
The trumpets blew ; and then did either side, 
They that assaiPd, and they that held the lists, 
Set lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly move, 
Meet in the midst, and there so furiously 455 

Shock that a man far-off might well perceive, 
If any man that day were left afield, 
The hard earth shake, and a low thunder of arms. 
And Lancelot bode a little, till he saw 

Which were the weaker ; then he hurFd into it 460 

Against the stronger: little need to speak 
Of Lancelot in his glory ! King, duke, earl, 
Count, baron — whom he smote, he overthrew. 

But in the field were Lancelot's kith and kin, 
Ranged with the Table Round that held the lists, 465 

Strong men, and wrathful that a stranger knight 



64 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Should do and almost overdo the deeds 

Of Lancelot ; and one said to the other, " Lo ! 

What is he ? I do not mean the force alone — 

The grace and versatility of the man I 47 

Is it not Lancelot ? " " When has Lancelot worn 

Favor of any lady in the lists ? 

Not such his wont, as we that know him know." 

" How then ? who then ? " a fury seized them all, 

A fiery family passion for the name 475 

Of Lancelot, and a glory one with theirs. 

They couch'd their spears and prick'd their steeds, and thus, 

Their plumes driven backward by the wind they made 

In moving, all together down upon him 

Bare, as a wild wave in the w r ide North Sea, 480 

Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all 

Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, 

Down on a bark, and overbears the bark 

And him that helms it ; so they overbore 

Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear 485 

Down-glancing lamed the charger, and a spear 

Prick'd sharply his own cuirass, and the head 

Pierced thro' his side, and there snapt and remauVd. 

Then Sir Lavaine did well and worshipfully : 
He bore a knight of old repute to the earth, 490 

And brought his horse to Lancelot where he lay. 
He up the side, sweating with agony, got, 
But thought to do while he might yet endure, 
And being lustily holpen by the rest, 

His party, — - tho' it seem'd half-miracle 495 

To those he fought with, — drave his kith and kin, 
And all the Table Round that held the lists, 
Back to the barrier ; then the trumpets blew 



• 






LANCELOT AND ELAINE 65 

Proclaiming his the prize who wore the sleeve 

Of scarlet and the pearls ; and all the knights, 500 

His party, cried, " Advance and take thy prize 

The diamond ; " but he answer'd : " Diamond me 

No diamonds ! for God's love, a little air ! 

Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death ! 

Hence will I, and I charge you, follow me not." 505 

He spoke, and vanish'd suddenly from the field 

With young Lavaine into the poplar grove. 

There from his charger down he slid, and sat, 

Gasping to Sir Lavaine, " Draw the lance-head." 

"Ah, my sweet lord Sir Lancelot," said Lavaine, 510 

"I dread me, if I draw it, you will die." 

But he, ".I die already with it : draw — 

Draw," — and Lavaine drew, and Sir Lancelot gave 

A marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan, 

And half his blood burst forth, and down he sank 515 

For the pure pain, and wholly swoon'd away. 

Then came the hermit out and bare him in, 

There stanch'd his wound ; and there, in daily doubt 

Whether to live or die, for many a week 

Hid from the wild world's rumor by the grove 520 

Of poplars with their noise of falling showers, 

And ever-tremulous aspen-trees, he lay. 

But on that day when Lancelot fled the lists, 
His party, knights of utmost North and West, 
Lords of waste marshes, kings of desolate isles, 525 

Came round their great Pendragon, saying to him, 
" Lo, Sire, our knight, thro' whom we won the day, 
Hath gone sore wounded, and hath left his prize 
Untaken, crying that his prize is death." 



66 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

" Heaven hinder," said the King, "that such an one, 530 

So great a knight as we have seen to-day — 

He seem'd to me another Lancelot — 

Yea, twenty times I thought him Lancelot — 

He must not pass uncared for. Wherefore rise, 

Gawain, and ride forth and find the knight. 535 
Wounded and wearied, needs must he be near. 

1 charge you that you get at once to horse. 

And, knights and kings, there breathes not one of you 

Will deem this prize of ours is rashly given : 

His prowess was too wondrous. We will do him 540 

No customary honor : since the knight 

Came not to us, of us to claim the prize, 

Ourselves will send it after. Rise and take 

This diamond, and deliver it, and return, 

And bring us where he is, and how he fares, 545 

And cease not from your quest until ye find. ,, 

So saying, from the carven flower above, 
To which it made a restless heart, he took 
And gave the diamond : then from where he sat 
At Arthur's right, with smiling face arose, 550 

With smiling face and frowning heart, a prince 
In the mid might and flourish of his May, 
Gawain, surnamed the Courteous, fair and strong, 
And after Lancelot, Tristram, and Geraint, 
And Gareth, a good knight, but therewithal 555 

Sir Modred's brother, and the child of Lot, 
Nor often loyal to his word, and now 
Wroth that the King's command to sally forth 
In quest of whom he knew not, made him leave 
The banquet and concourse of knights and kings. 560 






LANCELOT AND ELAINE 6? 

So all in wrath he got to horse and went ; 
While Arthur to the banquet, dark in mood, 
Past, thinking, " Is it Lancelot who hath come 
Despite the wound he spake of, all for gain 
Of glory, and hath added wound to wound, 565 

And ridden away to die ? " So fear'd the King, 
And, after two days' tarriance there, return'd. 
Then when he saw the Queen, embracing ask'd, 
" Love, are you yet so sick ? " " Nay, lord," she said. 
"And where is Lancelot ? " Then the Queen amazed, 570 
" Was he not with you ? won he not your prize ? " 
" Nay, but one like him." " Why, that like was he." 
And when the King demanded how she knew, 
Said : " Lord, no sooner had ye parted from us 
Than Lancelot told me of a common talk 575 

That men went down before his spear at a touch, 
But knowing he was Lancelot ; his great name 
Conquer'd ; and therefore would he hide his name 
From all men, even the King, and to this end 
Had made the pretext of a hindering wound, 580 

That he might joust unknown of all, and learn 
If his old prowess were in aught decay'd ; 
And added, ' Our true Arthur, when he learns, 
Will well allow my pretext, as for gain 
Of purer glory.' " 

Then replied the King : 585 

" Far lovelier in our Lancelot had it been, 
In lieu of idly dallying with the truth, 
To have trusted me as he hath trusted thee. 
Surely his King and most familiar friend 
Might well have kept his secret. True, indeed, 590 



68 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Albeit I know my knights fantastical, 

So fine a fear in our large Lancelot 

Must needs have moved my laughter : now remains 

But little cause for laughter : his own kin — 

111 news, my Queen, for all who love him, this ! — 595 

His kith and kin, not knowing, set upon him ; 

So that he went sore wounded from the field. 

Yet good news too ; for goodly hopes are mine 

That Lancelot is no more a lonely heart. 

He wore, against his wont, upon his helm 600 

A sleeve of scarlet, broider'd with great pearls, 

Some gentle maiden's gift." 

"Yea, lord," she said, 
" Thy hopes are mine," and saying that, she choked, 
And sharply turn'd about to hide her face, 
Past to her chamber and there flung herself 605 

Down on the great King's couch, and writhed upon it, 
And clench'd her fingers till they bit the palm, 
And shriek'd out " Traitor ! " to the unhearing wall, 
Then flash'd into wild tears, and rose again, 
And moved about her palace, proud and pale. 610 

Gawain the while thro' all the region round 
Rode with his diamond, wearied of the quest, 
Touch'd at all points except the poplar grove, 
And came at last, tho' late, to Astolat ; 

Whom glittering in enamell'd arms the maid 615 

Glanced at, and cried, "What news from Camelot, lord? 
What of the knight with the red sleeve ? " " He won." 
" I knew it," she said. " But parted from the jousts 
Hurt in the side ; " whereat she caught her breath ; 
Thro' her own side she felt the sharp lance go ; 620 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 69 

Thereon she smote her hand ; wellnigh she swoon'd : 

And, while he gazed wonderingly at her, came 

The Lord of Astolat out, to whom the prince 

Reported who he was, and on what quest 

Sent, that he bore the prize and could not find 625 

The victor, but had ridden at random round 

To seek him, and had wearied of the search. 

To whom the Lord of Astolat : " Bide with us, 

And ride no more at random, noble prince! 

Here was the knight and here he left a shield ; 630 

This will he send or come for : furthermore, 

Our son is with him ; we shall hear anon, 

Needs must we hear." To this the courteous prince 

Accorded with his wonted courtesy, 

Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it, 635 

And stay'd ; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine ; 

Where could be found face daintier ? then her shape 

From forehead down to foot, perfect — again 

From foot to forehead exquisitely turn'd : 

" Well — if I bide, lo ! this wild flower for me ! " 640 

And oft they met among the garden yews, 

And there he set himself to play upon her 

With sallying wit, free flashes from a height 

Above her, graces of the court, and songs, 

Sighs, and low smiles, and golden eloquence 645 

And amorous adulation, till the maid 

RebelPd against it, saying to him : " Prince, 

O loyal nephew of our noble King, 

Why ask you not to see the shield he left, 

Whence you might learn his name ? Why slight your King, 650 

And lose the quest he sent you on, and prove 

No surer than our falcon yesterday, 

Who lost the hern we slipt her at, and went 



JO IDYLLS OF THE KING 

To all the winds? " " Nay, by mine head/' said he, 
" I lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven, 

damsel, in the light of your blue eyes ; 
But an ye will it let me see the shield." 

And when the shield was brought, and Gawain saw 
Sir Lancelot's azure lions, crown'd with gold, 
Ramp in the field, he smote his thigh, and mocked : 
" Right was the King ! our Lancelot! that true man ! " 
"And right was I," she answer'd merrily, " I, 
Who dream'd my knight the greatest knight of all." 
"And if /dream'd," said Gawain, "that you love 
This greatest knight, your pardon ! lo, ye know it ! 
Speak therefore : shall I waste myself in vain?" 
Full simple was her answer : " What know I ? 
My brethren have been all my fellowship ; 
And I, when often they have talk'd of love, 
Wish'd it had been my mother, for they talk'd, 
Meseem'd, of what they knew not ; so myself — 

1 know not if I know what true love is, 
But if I know, then, if I love not him, 

I know there is none other I can love." 

" Yea, by God's death," said he, "ye love him well, 

But would not, knew ye what all others know, 

And whom he loves." " So be it," cried Elaine, 

And lifted her fair face and moved away : 

But he pursued her, calling, " Stay a little ! 

One golden minute's grace ! he wore your sleeve : 

Would he break faith with one I may not name ? 

Must our true man change like a leaf at last ? 

Nay — like enow : why then, far be it from me 

To cross our mighty Lancelot in his loves ! 

And, damsel, for I deem you know full well 

Where your great knight is hidden, let me leave 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 71 

My quest with you ; the diamond also : here ! 

For if you love, it will be sweet to give it ; 

And if he love, it will be sweet to have it 

From your own hand ; and whether he love or not, 690 

A diamond is a diamond. Fare you well 

A thousand times ! — a thousand times farewell ! 

Yet, if he love, and his love hold, we two 

May meet at court hereafter : there, I think, 

So ye will learn the courtesies of the court, 695 

We two shall know each other." 

Then he gave, 
And slightly kiss'd the hand to which he gave, 
The diamond, and all wearied of the quest 
Leapt on his horse, and carolling as he went 
A true-love ballad, lightly rode away. 700 

Thence to the court he past ; there told the King 
What the King knew, " Sir Lancelot is the knight." 
And added, " Sire, my liege, so much I learnt ; 
But faiPd to find him tho' I rode all round 
The region : but I lighted on the maid 705 

Whose sleeve he wore ; she loves him ; and to her, 
Deeming our courtesy is the truest law, 
I gave the diamond: she will render it ; 
For by mine head she knows his hiding-place." 

The seldom-frowning King frown'd, and replied, 710 

" Too courteous truly ! ye shall go no more 
On quest of mine, seeing that ye forget 
Obedience is the courtesy due to kings." 

He spake and parted. Wroth, but all in awe, 
For twenty strokes of the blood, without a word, 715 



72 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Linger'd that other, staring after him ; 

Then shook his hair, strode off, and buzz'd abroad 

About the maid of Astolat, and her love. 

All ears were prick'd at once, all tongues were loosed : 

" The maid of Astolat loves Sir Lancelot, 720 

Sir Lancelot loves the maid of Astolat." 

Some read the King's face, some the Queen's, and all 

Had marvel what the maid might be, but most 

Predoom'd her as unworthy. One old dame 

Came suddenly on the Queen with the sharp news. 725 

She, that had heard the noise of it before, 

But sorrowing Lancelot should have stoop'd so low, 

Marr'd her friend's aim with pale tranquillity. 

So ran the tale like fire about the court, 

Fire in dry stubble a nine-days' wonder flared : 730 

Till even the knights at banquet twice or thrice 

Forgot to drink to Lancelot and the Queen, 

And pledging Lancelot and the lily maid 

Smiled at each other, while the Queen, who sat 

With lips severely placid, felt the knot 735 

Climb in her throat, and with her feet unseen 

Crush'd the wild passion out against the floor 

Beneath the banquet, where the meats became 

As wormwood, and she hated all who pledged. 

But far away the maid in Astolat, 740 

Her guiltless rival, she that ever kept 
The one-day-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart, 
Crept to her father, while he mused alone, 
Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and said: 
" Father, you call me wilful, and the fault 745 

Is yours who let me have my will, and now, 
Sweet father, will you let me lose my wits ? " 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 73 

"Nay," said he, "surely." "Wherefore, let me hence," 

She answer'd, " and find out our dear Lavaine." 

" Ye will not lose your wits for dear Lavaine : 750 

Bide," answer'd he : " we needs must hear anon 

Of him, and of that other." "Ay," she said, 

"And of that other, for I needs must hence 

And find that other, whereso'er he be, 

And with mine own hand give his diamond to him, 755 

Lest I be found as faithless in the quest 

As yon proud prince who left the quest to me. 

Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams 

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 

Death-pale, for the lack of gentle maiden's aid. 760 

The gentler-born the maiden, the more bound, 

My father, to be sweet and serviceable 

To noble knights in sickness, as ye know, 

When these have worn their tokens : let me hence, 

I pray you." Then her father nodding said : 765 

"Ay, ay, the diamond : wit ye well, my child, 

Right fain were I to learn this knight were whole, 

Being our greatest : yea, and you must give it — 

And sure I think this fruit is hung too high 

For any mouth to gape for save a queen's — 770 

Nay, I mean nothing : so then, get you gone, 

Being so very wilful you must go." 

Lightly, her suit allow'd, she slipt away, 
And while she made her ready for her ride, 
Her father's latest word humm'd in her ear, 775 

" Being so very wilful you must go," 
And changed itself and echo'd in her heart, 
" Being so very wilful you must die." 
But she was happy enough and shook it off, 



74 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us ; 780 

And in her heart she answer'd it and said, 

" What matter, so I help him back to life ? " 

Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide 

Rode o'er the long backs of the bushless downs 

To Camelot, and before the city-gates 785 

Came on her brother with a happy face 

Making a roan horse caper and curvet 

For pleasure all about a field of flowers ; 

Whom when she saw, " Lavaine," she cried, " Lavaine, 

How fares my lord Sir Lancelot ? " He amazed, 790 

" Torre and Elaine ! why here ? Sir Lancelot ! 

How know ye my lord's name is Lancelot ? " 

But when the maid had told him all her tale, 

Then turn'd Sir Torre, and being in his moods 

Left them, and under the strange-statued gate, 795 

Where Arthur's wars were render'd mystically, 

Past up the still rich city to his kin, 

His own far blood, which dwelt at Camelot ; 

And her, Lavaine across the poplar grove 

Led to the caves : there first she saw the casque 800 

Of Lancelot on the wall : her scarlet sleeve, 

Tho' carved and cut, and half the pearls away, 

Stream'd from it still ; and in her heart she laugh'd, 

Because he had not loosed it from his helm, 

But meant once more perchance to tourney in it. 805 

And when they gain'd the cell wherein he slept, 

His battle-writhen arms and mighty hands 

Lay naked on the wolf-skin, and a dream 

Of dragging down his enemy made them move. 

Then she that saw him lying unsleek, unshorn, 810 

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 

Utter'd a little tender dolorous cry. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 75 

The sound not wonted in a place so still 

Woke the sick knight, and while he rolPd his eyes 

Yet blank from sleep, she started to him, saying, 815 

" Your prize the diamond sent you by the King." 

His eyes glisten'd : she fancied, "Is it for me ? " 

And when the maid had told him all the tale 

Of king and prince, the diamond sent, the quest 

Assigned to her not worthy of it, she knelt 820 

Full lowly by the corners of his bed, 

And laid the diamond in his open hand. 

Her face was near, and as we kiss the child 

That does the task assign'd, he kiss'd her face. 

At once she slipt like water to the floor. 825 

"Alas," he said, "your ride hath wearied you. 

Rest must you have." " No rest for me," she said ; 

" Nay, for near you, fair lord, I am at rest." 

What might she mean by that ? his large black eyes, 

Yet larger thro' his leanness, dwelt upon her, 830 

Till all her heart's sad secret blazed itself 

In the heart's colors on her simple face ; 

And Lancelot look'd and was perplext in mind, 

And being weak in body said no more, 

But did not love the color ; woman's love, 835 

Save one, he not regarded, and so turn'd 

Sighing, and feign'd a sleep until he slept. 

Then rose Elaine and glided thro' the fields, 
And past beneath the weirdly-sculptured gates 
Far up the dim rich city to her kin ; 840 

There bode the night : but woke with dawn, and past 
Down thro' the dim rich city to the fields, 
Thence to the cave. So day by day she past 
In either twilight ghost-like to and fro 



76 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Gliding, and every day she tended him, 845 

And likewise many a night ; and Lancelot 

Would, tho' he calPd his wound a little hurt 

Whereof he should be quickly whole, at times 

Brain-feverous in his heat and agony, seem 

Uncourteous, even he : but the meek maid 850 

Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him 

Meeker than any child to a rough nurse, 

Milder than any mother to a sick child, 

And never woman yet, since man's first fall, 

Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love 855 

Upbore her; till the hermit, skill'd in all 

The simples and the science of that time, 

Told him that her fine care had saved his life. 

And the sick man forgot her simple blush, 

Would call her friend and sister, sweet Elaine, 860 

Would listen for her coming and regret 

Her parting step, and held her tenderly, 

And loved her with all love except the love 

Of man and woman when they love their best, 

Closest and sweetest, and had died the death 865 

In any knightly fashion for her sake. 

And peradventure had he seen her first 

She might have made this and that other world 

Another world for the sick man; but now 

The shackles of an old love straiten'd him, 870 

His honor rooted in dishonor stood, 

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

Yet the great knight in his mid-sickness made 
Full many a holy vow and pure resolve. 
These, as but born of sickness, could not live ; 875 

For when the blood ran lustier in him again, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE yy 

Full often the bright image of one face, 

Making a treacherous quiet in his heart, 

Dispersed his resolution like a cloud. 

Then if the maiden, while that ghostly grace 880 

Beam'd on his fancy, spoke, he answer'd not, 

Or short and coldly, and she knew right well 

What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant 

She knew not, and the sorrow dimm'd her sight, 

And drave her ere her time across the fields 885 

Far into the rich city, where alone 

She murmur'd, " Vain, in vain : it cannot be. 

He will not love me : how then ? must I die ? " 

Then as a little helpless innocent bird, 

That has but one plain passage of few notes, 890 

Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er 

For all an April morning, till the ear 

Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid 

Went half the night repeating, " Must I die ? " 

And now to right she turn'd, and now to left, 895 

And found no ease in turning or in rest ; 

And " Him or death," she mutter'd, " death or him," 

Again and like a burthen, " Him or death." 

But when Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole, 
To Astolat returning rode the three. 900 

There morn by morn, arraying her sweet self 
In that wherein she deem'd she look'd her best, 
She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought, 
" If I be loved, these are my festal robes, 
If not, the victim's flowers before he fall." 905 

And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid 
That she should ask some goodly gift of him 
For her own self or hers : " and do not shun 



78 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

To speak the wish most near to your true heart; 

Such service have ye done me that I make 9I0 

My will of yours, and prince and lord am I 

In mine own land, and what I will I can." 

Then like a ghost she lifted up her face, 

But like a ghost without the power to speak. 

And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish, 915 

And bode among them yet a little space 

Till he should learn it ; and one morn it chanced 

He found her in among the garden yews, 

And said, " Delay no longer, speak your wish, 

Seeing I go to-day: " then out she brake : 920 

" Going ? and we shall never see you more. 

And I must die for want of one bold word." 

" Speak : that I live to hear," he said, " is yours." 

Then suddenly and passionately she spoke : 

" I have gone mad. I love you : let me die." 925 

"Ah, sister," answer'd Lancelot, "what is this? " 

And innocently extending her white arms, 

"Your love," she said, "your love — to be your wife." 

And Lancelot answer'd, " Had I chosen to wed, 

I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine ; - 930 

But now there never will be wife of mine." 

" No, no," she cried, " I care not to be wife, 

But to be with you still, to see your face, 

To serve you, and to follow you thro' the world." 

And Lancelot answer'd: "Nay, the world, the world, 935 

All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart 

To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue 

To blare its own interpretation — nay, 

Full ill then should I quit your brother's love, 

And your good father's kindness." And she said, 940 

" Not to be with you, not to see your face — 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 



79 



Alas for me then, my good days are done ! " 

" Nay, noble maid," he answer'd, " ten times nay ! 

This is not love, but love's first flash in youth, 

Most common: yea, I know it of mine own self; 945 

And you yourself will smile at your own self 

Hereafter, when you yield your flower of life 

To one more fitly yours, not thrice your age : 

And then will I, for true you are and sweet 

Beyond mine old belief in womanhood, 950 

More specially should your good knight be poor, 

Endow you with broad land and territory 

Even to the half my realm beyond the seas, 

So that would make you happy : furthermore, 

Even to the death, as tho' ye were my blood, 955 

In all your quarrels will I be your knight. 

This will I do, dear damsel, for your sake, 

And more than this I cannot." 

While he spoke 
She neither blush'd nor shook, but deathly-pale 
Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied, 960 

"Of all this will I nothing ; " and so fell, 
And thus they bore her swooning to her tower. 

Then spake, to whom thro' those black walls of yew 
Their talk had pierced, her father : "Ay, a flash, 
I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead. 965 

Too courteous are ye, fair Lord Lancelot. 
I pray you, use some rough discourtesy 
To blunt or break her passion." 

Lancelot said, 
" That were against me : what I can I will ; " 



80 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And there that day remain'd, and toward even 9; 

Sent for his shield : full meekly rose the maid, 

Stript off the case, and gave the naked shield; 

Then, when she heard his horse upon the stones, 

Unclasping flung the casement back, and look'd 

Down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone. 975 

And Lancelot knew the little clinking sound ; 

And she by tact of love was well aware 

That Lancelot knew that she was looking at him. 

And yet he glanced not up, nor waved his hand, 

Nor bade farewell, but sadly rode away. 9 8 ° 

This was the one discourtesy that he used. 

So in her tower alone the maiden sat : 
His very shield was gone ; only the case, 
Her own poor work, her empty labor, left. 
But still she heard him, still his picture form'd 985 

And grew between her and the pictured wall. 
Then came her father, saying in low tones, 
"Have comfort," whom she greeted quietly. 
Then came her brethren saying, " Peace to thee, 
Sweet sister," whom she answer'd with all calm. 990 

But when they left her to herself again, 
Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field 
Approaching thro' the darkness, call'd ; the owls 
Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt 
Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms 995 

Of evening and the moanings of the wind. 

And in those days she made a little song, 
And calPd her song " The Song of Love and Death," 
And sang it: sweetly could she make and sing. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 8 1 

" Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in vain; iooo 

And sweet is death who puts an end to pain : 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

" Love, art thou sweet ? then bitter death must be : 
Love, thou art bitter ; sweet is death to me. 

Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 1005 

" Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away ; 
Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay : 

1 know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

" I fain would follow love, if that could be ; 
I needs must follow death, who calls for me ; 1010 

Call and I follow, I follow ! let me die." 

High with the last line scaled her voice, and this, 
All in a fiery dawning wild with wind 
That shook her tower, the brothers heard, and thought 
With shuddering, " Hark the Phantom of the house 1015 
That ever shrieks before a death/' and call'd 
The father, and all three in hurry and fear 
Ran to her, and lo ! the blood-red light of dawn 
Flared on her face, she shrilling, " Let me die ! n 

As when we dwell upon a word we know, 1020 

Repeating, till the word we know so well 
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why, 
So dwelt the father on her face, and thought, 
"Is this Elaine?" till back the maiden fell, 
Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay, 1025 

Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes. 
At last she said : "Sweet brothers, yesternight 
I seem'd a curious little maid again, 



82 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

As happy as when we dwelt among the woods, 
And when ye used to take me with the flood 103c 

Up the great river in the boatman's boat. 
Only ye would not pass beyond the cape 
That had the poplar on it : there ye fixt 
Your limit, oft returning with the tide. 
And yet I cried because ye would not pass 1035 

Beyond it, and far up the shining flood 
Until we found the palace of the King. 
And yet ye would not ; but this night I dream'd 
That I was all alone upon the flood, 
And then I said, 'Now shall I have my will:' 1040 

And there I woke, but still the wish remain'd. 
So let me hence that I may pass at last 
Beyond the poplar and far up the flood, 
Until I find the palace of the King. 
There will I enter in among them all, 1045 

And no man there will dare to mock at me ; 
But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, 
And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me ; 
• Gawain, who bade a thousand farewells to me, 
Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bade me one : 1050 

And there the King will know me and my love, 
And there the Queen herself will pity me, 
And all the gentle court will welcome me, 
And after my long voyage I shall rest!" 

"Peace/' said her father, "O my child, ye seem 1055 

Light-headed, for what force is yours to go 
So far, being sick ? and wherefore would ye look 
On this proud fellow again, who scorns us all ?" 

Then the rough Torre began to heave and move, 
And bluster into stormy sobs and say : 1060 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 83 

"I never loved him : an I meet with him, 

I care not howsoever great he be, 

Then will I strike at him and strike him down; 

Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead, 

For this discomfort he hath done the house." 1065 

To whom the gentle sister made reply : 
" Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth, 
Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault 
Not to love me than it is mine to love 
Him of all men who seems to me the highest." 1070 

" Highest?" the father answer'd, echoing "highest?" — 
He meant to break the passion in her — "nay, 
Daughter, I know not what you call the highest ; 
But this I know, for all the people know it, 

He loves the Queen, and in an open shame: 1075 

And she returns his love in open shame ; 
If this be high, what is it to be low?" 

Then spake the lily maid of Astolat : 
"Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I 

For anger : these are slanders ; never yet 1080 

Was noble man but made ignoble talk. 
He makes no friend who never made a foe. 
But now it is my glory to have loved 
One peerless, without stain : so let me pass, 
My father, howsoe'er I seem to you, 1085 

Not all unhappy, having loved God's best 
And greatest, tho' my love had no return : 
Yet, seeing you desire your child to live, 
Thanks, but you work against your own desire ; 
For if I could believe the things you say 1090 



84 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

I should but die the sooner ; wherefore cease, 
Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man 
Hither, and let me shrive me clean and die." 

So when the ghostly man had come and gone, 
She, with a face bright as for sin forgiven, 
Besought Lavaine to write as she devised 
A letter, word for word ; and when he ask'd, 
"Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord ? 
Then will I bear it gladly ;" she replied, 
"For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world, 
But I myself must bear it." Then he wrote 
The letter she devised; which being writ 
And folded, "O sweet father, tender and true, 
Deny me not," she said — "ye never yet 
Denied my fancies — this, however strange, 
My latest : lay the letter in my hand 
A little ere I die, and close the hand 
Upon it ; I shall guard it even in death. 
And when the heat has gone from out my heart, 
Then take the little bed on which I died 
For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the Queen's 
For richness, and me also like the Queen 
In all I have of rich, and lay me on it. 
And let there be prepared a chariot-bier 
To take me to the river, and a barge 
Be ready on the river, clothed in black. 
I go in state to court, to meet the Queen. 
There surely I shall speak for mine own self, 
And none of you can speak for me so well. 
And therefore let our dumb old man alone 
Go with me ; he can steer and row, and he 
Will guide me to that palace, to the doors." 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 85 

She ceased: her father promised; whereupon 
She grew so cheerful that they deem'd her death 
Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. 11 25 

But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh 
Her father laid the letter in her hand, 
And closed the hand upon it, and she died. 
So that day there was dole in Astolat. 

But when the next sun brake from underground, 11 30 

Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows 
Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier 
Past like a shadow thro' the field, that shone 
Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge, 
Pall'd all its length in blackest samite, lay. 1135 

There sat the lifelong creature of the house, 
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck, 
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. 
So those two brethren from the chariot took 
And on the black decks laid her in her bed, 1140 

Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung 
The silken case with braided blazonings, 
And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her, 
"Sister, farewell for ever/' and again, 

"Farewell, sweet sister," parted all in tears. 1145 

Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, 
Oar'd by the dumb, went upward with the flood — 
In her right hand the lily, in her left 
The letter — all her bright hair streaming down — 
And all the coverlid was cloth of gold 11 50 

Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white 
xAll but her face, and that clear-featured face 
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead, 
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled. 



86 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved "5Si 

Audience of Guinevere, to give at last 
The price of half a realm, his costly gift, 
Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow, 
With deaths of others, and almost his own, 
The nine-years-fought- for diamonds ; for he saw 1160 j 

One of her house, and sent him to the Queen 
Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed 
With such and so unmoved a majesty 
She might have seem'd her statue, but that he, 
Low-drooping till he wellnigh kiss'd her feet 1165 

For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye 
The shadow of some piece of pointed lace, 
In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls, 
And parted, laughing in his courtly heart. 

All in an oriel on the summer side, 11 70 

Vine-clad, of Arthur's palace toward the stream, 
They met, and Lancelot kneeling utter'd, " Queen, 
Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy, 
Take, what I had not won except for you, 
These jewels, and make me happy, making them 1175 

An armlet for the roundest arm on earth, 
Or necklace for a neck to which the swan's 
Is tawnier than her cygnet's : these are words : 
Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin 
In speaking, yet O grant my worship of it 1180 

Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words 
Perchance, we both can pardon: but, my Queen, 
I hear of rumors flying thro' your court. 
Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, 
Should have in it an absoluter trust 1185 

To make up that defect : let rumors be : 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 87 

When did not rumors fly ? these, as I trust 
That you trust me in your own nobleness, 
I may not well believe that you believe." 

While thus he spoke, half turn'd away, the Queen 1190 
Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine 
Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off, 
Till all the place whereon she stood was green ; 
Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand 
Received at once and laid aside the gems 1195 

There on a table near her, and replied : 

" It may be I am quicker of belief 
Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake. 
Our bond is not the bond of man and wife. 
This good is in it, whatsoe'er of ill, "1200 

It can be broken easier. I for you 
This many a year have done despite and wrong 
To one whom ever in my heart of hearts 
I did acknowledge nobler. W T hat are these ? 
Diamonds for me ! they had been thrice their worth 1205 
Being your gift, had you not lost your own. 
To loyal hearts the value of all gifts 
Must vary as the giver's. Not for me ! 
For her! for your new fancy. Only this 
Grant me, I pray you : have your joys apart. 1210 

I doubt not that, however changed, you keep 
So much of what is graceful : and myself 
Would shun to break those bonds of courtesy 
In which as Arthur's Queen I move and rule : 
So cannot speak my mind. An end to this! 1215 

A strange one ! yet I take it with Amen. 
So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls ; 



88 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Deck her with these ; tell her, she shines me down : 

An armlet for an arm to which the Queen's 

Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck 12: 

O as much fairer — as a faith once fair 

Was richer than these diamonds — hers not mine — 

Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, 

Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will — 

She shall not have them." 

Saying which she seized, 1225 

And, thro' the casement standing wide for heat, 
Flung them, and down they flash'd, and smote the stream. 
Then from the smitten surface flash'd, as it were, 
Diamonds to meet them, and they past away. 
Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain 1230 

At love, life, all things, on the window ledge, 
Close underneath his eyes, and right across 
Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge 
W T hereon the lily maid of Astolat 
Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night. 1235 

But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away 
To weep and wail in secret ; and the barge, 
On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. 
There two stood arm'd, and kept the door ; to whom 
All up the marble stair, tier over tier, 1240 

Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask'd, 
" What is it ? " but that oarsman's haggard face, 
As hard and still as is the face that men 
Shape to their fancy's eye from broken rocks 
On some cliff-side, appall'd them, and they said, 1245 

" He is enchanted, cannot speak — and she, 
Look how she sleeps — the Fairy Queen, so fair ! 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 89 

Yea, but how pale ! what are they ? flesh and blood ? 

Or come to take the King to Fairyland ? 

For some do hold our Arthur cannot die, 1250 

But that he passes into Fairyland." 

While thus they babbled of the King, the King 
Came girt with knights : then turn'd the tongueless man 
From the half-face to the full eye, and rose 
And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. 1255 

So Arthur bade the meek Sir Percivale 
And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid ; 
And reverently they bore her into hall. 
Then came the fine Gawain and wonder'd at her, 
And Lancelot later came and mused at her, 1260 

And last the Queen herself, and pitied her: 
But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, 
Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it ; this was all : 

" Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 
I, sometime call'd the maid of Astolat, 1265 

Come, for you left me taking no farewell, 
Hither, to take my last farewell of you. 
I loved you, and my love had no return, 
And therefore my true love has been my death. 
And therefore to our Lady Guinevere, 1270 

And to all other ladies, I make moan : 
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial. 
Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot, 
As thou art a knight peerless." 

Thus he read ; 
And ever in the reading, lords and dames 1275 

Wept, looking often from his face who read 



9 o 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

To hers which lay so silent, and at times, 

So touch'd were they, half-thinking that her lips, 

Who had devised the letter, moved again. 

Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all : 1280 ' 

" My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear, 
Know that for this most gentle maiden's death 
Right heavy am I ; for good she was and true, 
But loved me with a love beyond all love 
In women, whomsoever I have known. 1285 

Yet to be loved makes not to love again; 
Not at my years, however it hold in youth. 
I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave 
No cause, not willingly, for such a love : 
To this I call my friends in testimony, I2 9° 

Her brethren, and her father, who himself 
Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, 
To break her passion, some discourtesy 
Against my nature : what I could, I did. 
I left her and I bade her no farewell ; 1295 

Tho' had I dreamt the damsel would have died, 
I might have put my wits to some rough use, 
And help'd her from herself." 

Then said the Queen 
(Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm) 
" Ye might at least have done her so much grace, 1300 

Fair lord, as would have help'd her from her death." 
He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell, 
He adding, 

" Queen, she would not be content 
Save that I wedded her, which could not be. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 91 

Then might she follow me thro' the world, she ask'd ; 

It could not be. I told her that her love 

Was but the flash of youth, would darken down, 

To rise hereafter in a stiller flame 

Toward one more worthy of her — then would I, 

More specially were he, she wedded, poor, 

Estate them with large land and territory 

In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas, 

To keep them in all joyance : more than this 

I could not; this she would not, and she died." 

He pausing, Arthur answer'd, "O my knight, 
It will be to thy worship, as my knight, 
And mine, as head of all our Table Round, 
To see that she be buried worshipfully. ,, 

So toward that shrine which then in all the realm 
Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went 
The marshalPd Order of their Table Round, 
And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see 
The maiden buried, not as one unknown, 
Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, 
And mass, and rolling music, like a queen. 
And when the knights had laid her comely head 
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings, 
Then Arthur spake among them, " Let her tomb 
Be costly, and her image thereupon, 
And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 
Be carven, and her lily in her hand. 
And let the story of her dolorous voyage 
For all true hearts be blazon'd on her tomb 
In letters gold and azure ! " which was wrought 
Thereafter ; but when now the lords and dames 



92 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And people, from the high door streaming, broke 

Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, 

Who mark'd Sir Lancelot where he moved apart, 

Drew near, and sigh'd in passing, " Lancelot, 

Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love." 1340 

He answer'd with his eyes upon the ground, 

" That is love's curse ; pass on, my Queen, forgiven." 

But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows, 

Approach'd him, and with full affection said : 

" Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have 1345 

Most joy and most affiance, for I know 
What thou hast been in battle by my side, 
And many a time have watch'd thee at the tilt 
Strike down the lusty and long practised knight, 
And let the younger and unskilPd go by 1350 

To win his honor and to make his name, 
And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man 
Made to be loved ; but now I would to God, 
Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes, 
Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it seems, 1355 
By God for thee alone, and from her face, 
If one may judge the living by the dead, 
Delicately pure and marvellously fair, 
Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man 
Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons 1360 

Born to the glory of thy name and fame, 
My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake." 

Then answer'd Lancelot : " Fair she was, my King, 
Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. 
To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, 1365 

To doubt her pureness were to want a heart — 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 93 

Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love 

Could bind him, but free love will not be bound." 

" Free love, so bound, were freest," said the King. 
" Let love be free ; free love is for the best : 1370 

And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, 
What should be best, if not so pure a love 
Clothed in so pure a loveliness ? yet thee 
She fail'd to bind, tho' being, as I think, 
Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know." 1375 

And Lancelot answer'd nothing, but he went, 
And at the inrunning of a little brook 
Sat by the river in a cove, and watch'd 
The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes 
And saw the barge that brought her moving down, 1380 

Far-off, a blot upon the stream, and said 
Low in himself, "Ah, simple heart and sweet, 
Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love 
Far tenderer than my Queen's. Pray for thy soul ? 
Ay, that will I. Farewell too — now at last — 1385 

Farewell, fair lily. ' Jealousy in love ? ' 
Not rather dead love's harsh heir, jealous pride ? 
Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love, 
May not your crescent fear for name and fame 
Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes ? 1390 

Why did the King dwell on my name to me ? 
Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach, 
Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake 
Caught from his mother's arms — the wondrous one 
Who passes thro' the vision of the night — 1395 

She chanted snatches of mysterious hymns 
Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn 



94 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

She kiss'd me saying, ' Thou art fair, my child, 

As a king's son/ and often in her arms 

She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere. I400 

Would she had drown'd me in it, where'er it be ! 

For what am I? what profits me my name 

Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it : 

Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain: 

Now grown a part of me : but what use in it ? 1405 

To make men worse by making my sin known ? 

Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great ? 

Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man 

Not after Arthur's heart ! I needs must break 

These bonds that so defame me : not without 1410 

She wills it : would I, if she will'd it ? nay, 

Who knows ? but if I would not, then may God, 

I pray him, send a sudden angel down 

To seize me by the hair and bear me far, 

And fling me deep in that forgotten mere, 141 5 

Among the tumbled fragments of the hills." 

So groan'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, 
Not knowing he should die a holy man. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, 

First made and latest left of all the knights, 

Told, when the man was no more than a voice 

In the white winter of his age, to those 

With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. 5 

For on their march to westward, Bedivere, 
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host, 
Heard in his tent the moanings of the King : 

" I found Him in the shining of the stars, 
I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields, 10 

But in His ways with men I find Him not. 
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die. 
O me ! for why is all around us here 
As if some lesser god had made the world, 
But had not force to shape it as he would, 15 

Till the High God behold it from beyond, 
And enter it, and make it beautiful? 
Or else as if the world were wholly fair, 
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim, 
And have not power to see it as it is : 20 

Perchance, because we see not to the close ; — 
For I, being simple, thought to work His will, 
And have but stricken with the sword in vain ; 
And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend 
Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm 25 

95 



96 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Reels back into the beast, and is no more. 
My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death : 
Nay — God my Christ — I pass but shall not die." 

Then, ere that last weird battle in the west, 
There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kilPd 
In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown 
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
Went shrilling, " Hollow, hollow all delight ! 
Hail, King ! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. 
Farewell ! there is an isle of rest for thee. 
And I am blown along a wandering wind, 
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight ! " 
And fainter onward, like wild birds that change 
Their season in the night and wail their way 
From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream 40 

ShrhTd ; but in going mingled with dim cries 
Far in the moonlit haze among the hills, 
As of some lonely city sack'd by night, 
When all is lost, and wife and child with wail 
Pass to new lords ; and Arthur woke and calPd, 45 

" Who spake ? A dream. O light upon the wind, 
Thine, Gawain, was the voice — are these dim cries 
Thine ? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild 
Mourn, knowing it will go along with me ? " 

This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake : 
" O me, my King, let pass whatever will, 
Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field ; 
But in their stead thy name and glory cling 
To all high places like a golden cloud 

For ever : but as yet thou shalt not pass; 55 

Light was Gawain in life, and light in death 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 97 

Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man ; 

And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise — 

I hear the steps of Modred in the west, 

And with him many of thy people, and knights 60 

Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown 

Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee. 

Right well in heart they know thee for the King. 

Arise, go forth and conquer as of old." 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 65 

" Far other is this battle in the west 
Whereto we move than when we strove in youth, 
And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome, 
Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall, 
And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom is mine 70 

To war against my people and my knights. 
The king who fights his people fights himself. 
And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke 
That strikes them dead is as my death to me. 
Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way 75 

Thro' this blind haze which, ever since I saw 
One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
Hath folded in the passes of the world." 

Then rose the King and moved his host by night, 
And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league, 80 

Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse — 
A land of old upheaven from the abyss 
By fire, to sink into the abyss again ; 
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, 
And the long mountains ended in a coast 85 

Of ever-shifting sand, and far away 
The phantom circle of a moaning sea. 



98 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

There the pursuer could pursue no more, 

And he that fled no further fly the King ; 

And there, that day when the great light of heaven 9C 

Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year, 

On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed. 

Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 

Like this last, dim, w r eird battle of the west. 

A death-white mist slept over sand and sea, 95 

Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 

Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 

With formless fear ; and even on Arthur fell 

Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought. 

For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 

And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; 

And some had visions out of golden youth, 

And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 

Look in upon the battle ; and in the mist 

Was many a noble deed, many a base, 105 

And chance and craft and strength in single fights, 

And ever and anon with host to host 

Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, 

Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 

Of battle-axes on shatter'd helms, and shrieks no 

After the Christ, of those who falling down 

Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist ; 

And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights, 

Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies, 

Sweat, writhings, anguish, laboring of the lungs 115 

In that close mist, and cryings for the light, 

Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead 

Last, as by some one deathbed after wail 
Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death 



'5 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 99 

Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, 120 

Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 

A dead hush fell ; but when the dolorous day 

Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 

A bitter wind, clear from the north, and blew 

The mist aside, and with that wind the tide 125 

Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field 

Of battle : but no man was moving there; 

Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, 

Nor yet of heathen ; only the wan wave 

Brake in among dead faces, to and fro 130 

Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down 

Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, 

And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Rome, 

And rolling far along the gloomy shores 

The voice of days of old and days to be. 135 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
And whiter than the mist that all day long 
Had held the field of battle was the King : 

" Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world, 
And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move, 140 

And beats upon the faces of the dead, 
My dead, as tho' they had not died for me ? — 
O Bedivere, for on my heart hath fallen 
Confusion, till I know not what I am, 

Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King; - 145 

Behold, I seem but King among the dead." 

Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere : " My King, 
King everywhere ! and so the dead have kings, 
There also will I worship thee as King. 



IOO IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live 
Who love thee ; but who hates thee, he that brought 
The heathen back among us, yonder stands, 
Modred, unharm'd, the traitor of thine house." 

Then spake the King : " My house hath been my doom. 
But call not thou this traitor of my house 
Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me. 
My house are rather they who sware my vows, 
Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me King. 
And well for thee, saying in my dark hour, 
When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd, 
That quick or dead thou holdest me for King. 
King am I, whatsoever be their cry ; 
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see 
Yet, ere I pass." And uttering this the King 
Made at the man : then Modred smote his liege 
Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword 
Had beaten thin ; while Arthur at one blow, 
Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, 
Slew him, and, all but slain himself, he fell. 

So all day long the noise of battle rolPd 
Among the mountains by the winter sea ; 
Until King Arthur's Table, man by man, 
Had falPn in Lyonnesse about their lord, 
King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep, 
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, 
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
A broken chancel with a broken cross, 
That stood on ^ dark strait of barren land : 
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR IOI 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
" The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we 185 

Shall never more, at any future time, 
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camelot, as in the days that were; 

I perish by this people which I made, — 190 

Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more ; but, let what will be, be, 
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 
That without help I cannot last till morn. 
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 195 

Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
Holding the sword — and how I row'd across 200 

And took it, and have worn it, like a king ; 
And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
In aftertime, this also shall be known : 
But now delay not : take Excalibur, 

And fling him far into the middle mere ; 205 

Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word." 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : 
" It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm — 
A little thing may harm a wounded man; 210 

Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, 
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 



102 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept, 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
By zigzag paths and juts of pointed rock, 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt ; 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth- work 
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, 
This way and that dividing the swift mind, 
In act to throw : but at last it seem'd 
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 
There in the many-knotted water-flags, 
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
"Hast thou performed my mission which I gave ? 
What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ?' 5 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : 
"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 103 

Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight ; 

For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, 

Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 245 

This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 

Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, 

As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 

I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word. " 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 250 

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought ; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud: 255 

"And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
What good should follow this, if this were done ? 260 

What harm, undone ? Deep harm to disobey, 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
An act unprofitable, against himself? 

The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 265 

What record or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumors of a doubt ? But were this kept, 
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 270 

Saying: 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 



104 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 

So might some old man speak in the aftertime 

To all the people, winning reverence. 

But now much honor and much fame were lost." 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
And hid Excalibur the second time 
And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily : 
"What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
"I heard the water lapping on the crag, 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: 
"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 
Authority forgets a dying king, 
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 
That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, 
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, 
In whom should meet the offices of all, 
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ; 
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence : 
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 105 

Among the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword, 

And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 

Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, 305 

And flashing round and round, and whirPd in an arch, 

Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 

Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 

By night, with noises of the Northern Sea. 

So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur ; 310 

But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 

And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 

Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 

And lightly went the other to the King. 315 

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : 
"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out : what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
"Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 320 

Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
Nor tho' I live three lives of mortal men, 
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 

Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ; 325 

But when I look'd again, behold an arm, 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard : 330 

"My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 



106 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear 

My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 






So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 335 

Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, 

And would have spoken, but he found not words ; 340 

Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, 
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 

But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 345 

When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, " Quick, quick! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, 350 

Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 355 

The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
And on a sudden, lo, the level lake, 
And the long glories of the winter moon ! 360 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 107 

Beneath them ; and descending they were ware 

That all the decks were dense with stately forms, 

Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — by these 365 

Three Queens with crowns of gold : and from them rose 

A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, 

And, as it were one voice, an agony 

Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 

All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 370 

Or hath come, since the making of the world. 

Then murmur'd Arthur, " Place me in the barge." 
So to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 375 

And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 
And calPd him by his name, complaining loud, 
And dropping bitter tears against a brow 

Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white 380 

And colorless, and like the wither'd moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 
Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 385 

High from the dais-throne — were parch'd with dust, 
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 
Mixt with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 
So like a shatter'd column lay the King ; 

Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 390 

From spur to plume a star of tournament, 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 



108 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere : 
"Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
For now I see the true old times are dead, 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
Such times have been not since the light that led 
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole Round Table is dissolved 
Which was an image of the mighty world, 
And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
And the days darken round me, and the years, 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds. ,, 

And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge : 
" The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
Comfort thyself : what comfort is in me? 
I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
May He within himself make pure ! but thou, 
If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seest — if indeed I go — 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 109 

For all my mind is clouded with a doubt — 
To the island-valley of Avilion; 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, 
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
And on the mere the wailing died away. 

But when that moan had past for evermore, 
The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn 
Amazed him, and he groan'd, " The King is gone." 
And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme, 
" From the great deep to the great deep he goes." 

Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb 
The last hard footstep of that iron crag ; 
Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, 
" He passes to be King among the dead, 
And after healing of his grievous wound 
He comes again ; but — if he come no more — 
O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat, 
Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed 
On that high day, when, clothed with living light, 
They stood before his throne in silence, friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need ? " 



HO IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world, 
Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 460 

Around a king returning from his wars. 

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 
Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw, 
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, 
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, 465 

Down that long water opening on the deep 
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go 
From less to less and vanish into light. 
And the new sun rose bringing the new year. 



NOTES 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 

1 1. Lot : king of Orkney. 

1 1. Bellicent : queen of Orkney, daughter of Uther and Ygerne, 
half-sister of King Arthur. 

1 2. Gareth : nephew to King Arthur. Malory causes Sir Kay to 
dub him Beaumains or Fairhands ; and describes him as " large, and 
long, and broad in the shoulders, and well-visaged, and the fairest and 
largest hand that ever man saw." 

1 2. Spring : in the allegory of " The Year " Gareth and Lynette 
represent the springtime. 

1 3. Spate: a flood or freshet. 

1 18. Yield : reward. 

1 20. Discaged: uncaged. The figure begins with 1. 14. 

2 25. Gawain: son to Bellicent, half-brother to Gareth. 

2 26. Modred. Some of the old legends make him the son of Arthur 
and his half-sister, Bellicent. Arthur did not know that she was related 
to him ; yet Nemesis follows him, for Modred finally gives the King his 
death blow. See The Passing of Arthur, 1. 165. 

2 27. Proven : tried or put to test. 

2 32. Sullen. This word foreshadows. Modred finally proves a traitor 
to his King. 

2 40. An : if. 

2 40. Goose and golden eggs. For the story see Tennyson's poem, 
The Goose. 

2 46. Book of Hours: a book which contained the prayers prescribed 
by the Church for the various hours of the day or week. The pages 
of the book were illuminated in colors with gilded initials and pictures. 

2 47. Haunting: lingering. 

2 51. Leash of kings : three or more. Originally leash meant the 
line with which the hunter held his three greyhounds ; then by metonymy 



112 NOTES 

it came to be used for the hounds themselves, and later for a pack of 
hounds. 

3 56. Clomb: climbed. 

3 56. Brake : broke. 

3 66. Excalibur : King Arthur's sword, — 

the sword 

That rose from out the bosom of the lake, 

And Arthur row'd across and took it — rich 

With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, 

Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so bright 

That men are blinded by it — on one side, 

Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 

" Take me," but turn the blade and ye shall see, 

And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 

" Cast me away ! " 

The Coming of A rthur, 11. 295-304. 

3 76. The barons' war. 

For while he [King Arthur] linger'd there, 
[At the court of Guinevere's father] 
A doubt that ever smoulder'd in the hearts 
Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm 
Flash'd forth and into war : for most of these, 
Colleaguing with a score of petty kings, 
Made head against him, crying, " Who is he 
That he should rule us ? who hath proven him 
King Uther's son ? for lo ! we look at him, 
And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice, 
Are like to those of Uther whom we knew." 



So when the King had set his banner broad, 
At once from either side, with trumpet-blast, 
And shouts, and clarions shrilling unto blood, 
The long-lanced battle let their horses run. 
And now the Barons and the Kings prevail'd, 
And now the King, as here and there that war 
Went swaying; but the Powers who walk the world 
Made lightnings and great thunders over him, 
And dazed all eyes, till Arthur by main might, 
And mightier of his hands with every blow, 
And leading all his knighthood threw the kings 
Carados, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 113 

Claudius, and Clariance of Northumberland, 
The King Brandagoras of Latangor, 
With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore, 
And Lot of Orkney. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 62-71 and 100-117. 

4 85. Jousts: military contests where two knights on horseback 
attacked each other with blunted lances. See Scott's account of a 
tournament in Ivanhoe. 

4 88. Tourney : a contest of armed men with swords, lances, or other 
weapons. 

4 90. Burns : streams. 

4 105. Good lack: Good Lord. 

4 116. Follow the Christ : in speaking of the oath he exacted from 
his knights, King Arthur is made to say : 

I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 

To reverence the King, as if he were 

Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To honor his own word as if his God's, 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 

To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 

And worship her by years of noble deeds, 

Until they won her. 

Guinevere, 11. 464-474. 

5 128. Cloud that settles round his birth: Uther, Arthur's prede- 
cessor and reputed father, slew Gorloi's, a neighboring king, and took to 
wife his widow, Ygerne, the mother of Bellicent. 

afterward, 
Not many moons, King Uther died himself, 
Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule 
After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. 
And that same night, the night of the new year, 
By reason of the bitterness and grief 
That vext his mother, all before his time 
Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born 
Deliver'd at a secret postern-gate 
To Merlin, to be holden far apart 
Until his hour should come. 



114 NOTES 

" But let me tell thee now another tale," continued Bellicent, who had 
related to Leodogran the above story of Arthur's origin : 

on the night 
When Uther in Tintagil past away 
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two 
Left the still King, and passing forth to' breathe, 
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm 
Descending thro' the dismal night — a night 
In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost — 
Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps 
It seem'd in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof 
A dragon wing'd, and all from stem to stern 
Bright with a shining people on the decks, 
And gone as soon as seen. And then the two 
Dropt to the cove, and watch'd the great sea fall, 
Wave after wave, each mightier than the last, 
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep 
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame : 
And down the wave and in the flame was borne 
A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet, 
Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried " The King ! 
Here is an heir for Uther ! " 

The Coming' of Arthur, 11. 204-214 and 364-385. 

For there be those who hate him in their hearts, 
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet, 
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man : 
And there be those who deem him more than man, 
And dream he dropt from heaven. 

The Coming of Arthur ', 11. 178-182. 

5 131. Yield: allow. 

5 133-134. Who swept, etc. Arthur was King of Britain in the sixth 
century. The Romans abandoned England early in the fifth. Thus 
Arthur " swept the dust of ruined Rome from off the threshold of the 
realm," and met and defeated the invading Saxons. He was the cham- 
pion of Christianity against the surrounding heathen "idolaters." 

6 151. Knave : boy or servant. 

6 152. Bar : a rail or board, across which food was passed from the 
kitchen into the dining room. 

6 157. Villain (adj.) : slavish ; villain (noun): a member of the lowest 
unfree class of serfs. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE I I 5 

6 162. Thrall: slave. 

6 172. Perplext : interfered with. 

7 185. Camelot. " On the latest limit of the West, in the land of 
Lyonnesse, where save the rocky Isles of Scilly, all is now wild sea, 
rose the sacred Mount of Camelot. It rose from the deeps, with gar- 
dens and bowers, and palaces, and at the top of the mount was King 
Arthur's hall and the holy minster with the cross of gold." — A prose 
sketch found among Tennyson's papers, quoted by Dr. Vlymen. 

\ 7 187. Royal mount. " The Mount was the most beautiful in the 
world, sometimes green and fresh in the beam of morning, sometimes 
all one splendor, folded in the golden mists of the West. But all under- 
neath was hollow and the mountain trembled, when the seas rushed 
bellowing through the porphyry caves ; and there ran a prophecy that 
the mountain and the city on some wild morning would topple into the 
abyss and be no more." — Manuscript of Tennyson. 
7 202. Glamour : enchantment. 

7 202. Merlin : 

the most famous man of all those times, 
Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts, 
Had built the King his havens, ships, and halls, 
Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens ; 
The people call'd him Wizard. 

Merlin and Vivien, 11. 164-168. 

And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit 
And hundred winters are but as the hands 
Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 279-281. 

8 212. Lady of the Lake. 

Who knows a subtler magic than his [Merlin's] own — 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 

She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, 

Whereby to drive the heathen out : a mist 

Of incense curl'd about her, and her face 

Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom ; 

But there was heard among the holy hymns 

A voice as of the waters, for she dwells 

Down in a deep ; calm, whatsoever storms 

May shake the world, and when the surface rolls, 

Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 282-293. 



Il6 NOTES 

8 219. Sacred fish. " The fish was adopted by the early Church as 
its sacred symbol, because the Greek word for fish [IX0T2], which con- 
tains the initial letters of the name and titles of Christ [ Irjabs Xpta-Tos, 
Qeov Tibs, 'Zojttjp ; Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour], contains also the 
initial letters of some prophetic lines ascribed to the Sibyl of Erythra." 
— Lecky, European Morals, I, 400. 

8 225. Three queens. At the crowning of Arthur, there were 

three fair queens 
Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright 
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 275-278. 

Malory says, "One was King Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan le Fay; 
another w T as the Queen of Northgales ; the third was the Queen of the 
Waste Lands." 

8 229. Boughts : coils. 

9 248. Seer : one who sees or foresees ; a prophet. 

9 249-251. The seer is describing a mirage, an optical illusion appar- 
ently elevating objects into the sky and inverting them. 

9 256. Sacred mountain : Parnassus ; in Greek mythology the home 
of Apollo and the Muses. 

9 258. And built it to the music of their harps. So, legend says, 
Apollo built Troy. 

Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, 
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. 

Tithonus, 11. 62, 63. 

10 271. Enow: enough. 

10 280. Riddling of the Bards. The bards or poets of ancient 
Britain were supposed to have the gift of prophecy. Their prophetic 
utterances were often expressed in language that could bear a double 
interpretation. The predictions would thus be fulfilled whichever way 
the events ended. The following is an example of a " riddling triplet." 

Rain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow in the sky ! 
A young man will be wiser by and by ; 
An old man's wit may wander ere he die. 

Rain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow on the lea ! 
And truth is this to me, and that to thee ; 
And truth or clothed or naked let it be. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 1 17 

Rain, sun, and rain ! and the free blossom blows : 
Sun, rain, and sun ! and where is he who knows ? 
From the great deep to the great deep he goes. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 402-410. 

10 287. Brook : endure. 

10 293. She, nor I : give the syntax. 

11 298. Did their days in stone : inscribed their deeds on stone. 

11 314. Delivering doom : passing decrees or administering justice. 

11 321. Ranged : stood in order. 

12 333. Whether : which of two. 

12 337. Uther : Arthur's predecessor and reputed father. 

12 339. Say : report. 

12 340. Who : give the syntax. 

12 348. Held with these : sided with the barons. 

12 351. Standeth seized : has seized and still holds possession of. 

12 355. Wreak: avenge. 

13 359. Sir Kay : King Arthur's foster brother. 
13 359. Seneschal : steward. 

13 362. Gyve : fetter. 

13 362. Gyve and gag : send her to the ducking stool, the punish- 
ment for a woman who could not control her tongue. 

13 366. Had : would have. 

13 367. Aurelius Emrys. Ambrosius Aurelianus was emperor in 
Britain, Gaul, and Spain, under Honorius (about 440). The Arthu- 
rian legends make him brother of Uther, whom he preceded on the 
throne. 

13 380. Charlock : wild mustard. 

14 386. Tristram. Sir Tristram of Lyonnesse was nephew to King 
Mark, the word " cousin " being used in its older sense of kinsman. 
He was in love with Mark's wife, Iseult (i-solt/). 

14 398. Blazon'd : given their heraldic colors. 

14 411. Reave : deprive. 

15 419. Churl : a peasant. 

15 422. Lap him up in cloth of lead : roll him in his coffin, in those 
days made of lead. 

15 423. Craven : a mean coward. 

15 445. Lichen : a plant that often fastens itself to rock or stone or 
root. It will corrode the hardest rock or kill the thriftiest plant. 

16 447. Wot : knows. 

16 447. Brewis : broth or pottage. 



Il8 NOTES 

16 451, Lancelot: the knight whom Arthur loved. In the barons' 

war, 

the two, 

For each had warded either in the fight, 

Sware on the field of death a deathless love. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 129-13 1. 

Lancelot and Arthur's Queen, Guinevere, fall in love, and he breaks 
his vows. 

16 465. Sir Fair-hands. Beaumains is the name put in the mouth 
of Sir Kay by Malory. It means fair hands. See note, 1 2. 

17 476. Broach : spit, to which a piece of meat was fastened for 
roasting before an open fire. 

17 489. Tarns: mountain lakes. 

17 490. Caer-Eryri : Snowdon Field. Caer is a Welsh prefix mean- 
ing wall, fort, or castle; Eryri is the Welsh name of Snowdon, the 
highest mountain peak in Wales or in England. 

17 492. Isle Avilion (a-vil'ion, or, for the sake of the rhythm here, 
a-vil'i-on") : literally, the " Isle of Apples." " In Celtic mythology, the 
Land of the Blessed, or Isle of Souls, an earthly paradise in the west- 
ern seas." — Century Cyclopedia of Names. See The Passing of Arthur, 
11. 427-43 2 - 

18 519. Between the in-crescent and de-crescent moon : at the time 
of the full moon. 

18 524. Ragged oval: the boundary of their play lists. 

18 528. From Satan's foot to Peter's knee. St. Peter kept the keys 
of the gate of Heaven. The meaning, then, is from Sir Kay's tyranny 
(Hell) to King Arthur's favor (Heaven). 

18 529. News : now used as a singular noun though plural in form. 

20 571. Lions: the heraldic device on Lancelot's shield. 

And when the shield was brought, and Gawain saw 

Sir Lancelot's azure lions, crown'd with gold, 

Ramp in the field. ^ 7 . 

Lancelot and E lame, 11. 658-660. 

20 573. Hall. The mighty hall of Arthur is described in The Holy 
Grail, 225 ff. 

20 575. May-blossom : the white hawthorn which blossoms in May. 

The lanes, you know, were white with may. 

The Miller's Daughter. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE Iig 

20 586. Best blood : the wine used at the sacrament, typical of 
Christ's blood. 

21 607. Or a holy life : or become a nun. 

22 642. May : hawthorn blossom or color of the hawthorn blossom. 

22 646. Lane of access : passage to the King between the rows of 
knights. 

23 665. Maiden shield : the shield of an unproved knight. 
23 665. Casque : helmet. 

23 678. Trenchant : sharpened. 

24 688. Being named : called by name. 

24 693. Hath past his time : has reached his dotage. 

25 729. Foul-flesh'd agaric in the holt: decayed or ill-smelling 
fungus in the wood. The mushroom belongs to the agaricoid fungi. 

25 729. Holt : a grove. 

25 742. Shingle : water-worn stones, coarser than gravel. 

26 749. Unhappiness : mischance. 
26 751. Loon: stupid fellow. 

26 766. Beknaved : called knave. 

27 773. Evensong : vespers. 

27 778. Mere : a stagnant pool. 

27 799. Caitiff : wicked. 

27 804. Wan : gloomy. 

28 828. Cate : a dainty article of food. 

28 829. Peacock. When the peacock was served at table, in the days 
of knight-errantry, "All the guests, male and female, took a solemn 
vow; the knights vowing bravery, and the ladies engaging to be loving 
and faithful." [Quoted by Rolfe.] Lynette is thus reminded of her 
duty as a lady. 

29 839. Frontless : shameless. 

29 862. Avail : advantage. 

30 870. Allow : accept. 

30 871. Stoat: ermine. The lion and the ermine have been com- 
panions on the same small island. 
30 873. Ruth : pity. 
30 881. Hers: Cinderella's. 

30 889. Lent-lily in hue : yellow, the color of the daffodil or Lent 
lily, which is so called because it blossoms about the lenten season. 

31 908. Avanturine : a variety of feldspar, spangled with scales of 



120 NOTES 

31 922. Liefer had I : I had rather. 

32 934. Lightly : quickly. 

32 948. Grovelling : flat on the ground, face downward. 

33 971. Morning star. Lynette is changing. Love for Gareth is 
entering her heart, though she is too proud to withdraw 7 the epithets 
with which she has " beknaved " him. 

33 979. Fool's parable : foolish parable of the day, — the " Morning- 
Star, and Noon-Sun, and Evening-Star." 

34 996. Worship : respect. 
34 1002. Shallow : stream. 

34 1002. Flower : the dandelion. 

34 1008. Brother. Gareth, having the shield of Morning-Star, is 
mistaken by Noon-Sun for his brother. 

34 1008. Marches : the borderlands or boundaries of his district. 

35 1012. Vizoring : covering with the vizor of his helmet. 
35 1013. Cipher : round and meaningless. 

35 1026. Myself when I return will plead for thee. Gareth is a 
true knight. His antagonist fell because of an accident to his horse. 
Knightly courtesy demanded that he be dealt with as an unfortunate. 
Gareth not only rescued him from the stream but promised to plead 
for him at Arthur's court. 

36 1048. The boar hath rosemaries and bay. The boar's head, 
when served before the king, is garnished not with flowers but with 
rosemaries (evergreens) and bay (laurel). 

36 1052. Mavis : song thrush. 

36 1052. Merle : European blackbird. 

36 1060. Treble bow : three spans. 

36 1067. Wrapt in harden* d skins. In the allegory these hardened 
skins may be taken to mean the evil habits of a lifetime. 

37 1075. Disaster. Etymologically this word means ill star or evil 
star. 

38 1099. Foredooming : foreboding or apprehending or fearing. 

38 1118. Buoy: the object of "can bring under," the understood 
predicate of " Southwesterns." 

39 1130. Trefoil : clover. 

39 1146. Sooth: truth. 

40 1163. Comb : a " bowl-shaped hollow or valley inclosed on all 
sides but one by steep and in some cases perpendicular cliffs." — 
Century Dictionary. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 121 

40 1172. Vexillary: a Roman standard bearer. The reference is 
to certain Latin inscriptions made by a Roman standard bearer on the 
cliffs above the river Gelt in Cumberland. 

40 1174. Phosphorus : the Greek for morning star. 

40 1174. Meridies : the Latin for midday. 

40 1174. Hesperus : the Greek for evening star. 

40 1175. Nox : the Latin for night. 

40 1175. Mors : the Latin for death. 

43 1273. Ramp : rear or spring up. 

44 1281. Arthur's Harp. Gareth was studying the stars. Some 
believe that the constellation called Arthur's Harp was the one known 
as Lyra, consisting of three stars, Vega, Arcturus, and Polaris, arranged 
in the shape of a triangle. Dr. Rolfe, quoting the lines from The Last 
Tournament, 

Dost thou know the star 
We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven ? 

infers that the Harp was a single star and not a constellation. The 
star Arcturus, constellation Bootes, is known as Arthur's Hufe 
(haunt). Dr. Vlymen says that the Great Bear is here referred to. 

46 1348. Fleshless laughter : the grinning skull of Death. 

47 1367. Blink : shut their eyes to. 

47 1386. Then sprang the happier day from underground. In the 
allegory, spring has come, and the plant life rises again from its season 
of " death." 

47 1392. He : Malory, the author of Morte Darthur. 

47 1394. He : Tennyson. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 

49 2. Astolat : the Arthurian name for Guilford in Surrey. 
49 4. Sacred : to Elaine. 
49 8. Braided : embroidered. 
49 10. Tinct : tint. 
49 10, Wit : skill or fancy. 
49 22. Caerlyle : Carlisle in Cumberland. 

49 23. Caerleon: in Monmouthshire, where King Arthur, according 
to tradition, held his court. 

49 23. Camelot : described in Gareth and Lynette, 11. 296 ff. 



122 NOTES 

50 35. Lyonnesse : the mythical land from which Arthur came and 
the birthplace of Sir Tristram. 

A land of old upheaven from the abyss 
By fire, to sink into the abyss again. 

The Passing of Arthur, 11. 82-83. 

Now, " it is said to be more than forty fathoms under water between 
the Land's End and the isles of Stilly, the sea having gradually 
encroached upon the land." — Century Cyclopedia of Names. 

50 36. Tarn : a small lake which has no visible feeders or outlets. 

50 50. Nape : the back, upper part of the neck. 

50 53. Shingly scaur (skar) : a steep cliff covered with loose water- 
worn stones. 

51 59. Divinely : by the guidance of God, or providentially. 
51 67. Still : every year. 

51 69. Queen : Guinevere, between whom and Lancelot there existed 
unknightly relations. 

51 75. Place : London. 

52 91. Tale : number. 

52 94. Lets : hinders or keeps. 
52llo. Allow'd : permitted. 
52 111. Of:' by. 

52 lis. Devoir: duty. 

53 125. Untruth : unfaithfulness. 

53 ]32. He is all fault who hath no fault at all. Is this the com- 
mon verdict ? Nearly the same idea is expressed in the following lines 
from Tennyson's Maud, I. ii. 11. 6-7 : 

Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, 
Dead perfection, no more. 

57 269. Glanced at : spoke of. 

57 270. Suddenly speaking of the wordless man. Not caring to 
talk of the Queen and himself, Lancelot changes the subject by asking 
a question about the dumb porter who met him at the gates of 
Astolat. 

58 279. Badon hill: Mons Badonicus, or Badbury Rings in Dorset- 
shire. When, in 520, the Saxons (called in The Idylls the " White 
Horse ") were invading England, " the Britons rallied under a new 
leader, Arthur, and threw back the invaders as they pressed westward 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 123 

through the Dorsetshire wood-lands in a great overthrow at Badbury 
or Mount Badon." — Green, History of the English People, I, 24. 
58 280. Rapt : transported. 

58 288 ff. " The first battle in which he [Arthur] was engaged, 
was at the mouth of the river Gleni. The second, third, fourth, and 
fifth, were on the river, by the Britons called Duglas, in the region 
Linius. The sixth, on the river Bassas. The seventh, in the wood 
Celidon, which the Britons call Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth was 
near Gurnion castle, where Arthur bore the image of the Holy Virgin, 
mother of God, upon his shoulders, and through the power of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and the holy Mary, put the Saxons to flight, and pursued 
them the whole day with great slaughter. The ninth was at the City 
of Legion [Exeter], which is called Cair Lion. The tenth was on the 
banks of the river Trat Treuroit. The eleventh was on the mountain 
Breguoin, which we call Cat Bregion. The twelfth was a most severe 
contest, when Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon. In this engage- 
ment, nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the 
Lord affording him assistance. In all these engagements the Britons 
were successful. For no strength can avail against the will of the 
Almighty." 

Gleni = Glem, in Lincolnshire, by some. 

= probably Glen, in Northumberland. 
Duglas = the little river Dunglas. 
Bassas = an isolated rock called " The Bass " in the Frith of Forth, not a 

river. 
Celidon = the Caledonian forest, or the forest of Englewood. 
Gurnion castle = probably "the Roman station of Garionenni, near Yar- 
mouth, in Norfolk." 
Legion = Exeter. 

Trat Treuroit = the Brue, in Somersetshire ; or the Ribble, Lancashire. 
Cat Bregion = Cadbury, in Somersetshire ; or Edinburgh. 
Badon = Bath. 

— Nennius, History of the Britoris, translated by J. A. Giles, " Six Old 
English Chronicles," Bohn's Antiquarian Library, 408, 409, and Note. 

58 297. Wild White Horse. The White Horse was the emblem of 
the Saxon invaders. 

Tamper'd with the Lords of the White Horse, 
Heathen, the brood by Hengist left. 

Guinevere, 11. 15-16. 

59 314. The fire of God. King Arthur was God's champion. 



124 NOTES 

" Sir and my liege," he [Lancelot] cried, " the fire of God 
Descends upon thee in the battle-field." 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 127-128. 

59 338. Rathe : early. 

60 357. Braved : set at defiance. 

62 422. Pendragon : At the moment when King Aurelius died, there 
appeared to Uther "a star of wonderful magnitude and brightness, 
darting forth a ray, at the end of which was a globe of fire in form of a 
dragon, out of whose mouth issued two rays ; one of which seemed 
to stretch out itself beyond the extent of Gaul, the other towards the 
Irish Sea, and ended in seven lesser rays." Uther, the King's brother, 
in alarm consulted Merlin as to the meaning of the portent. He 
answered "You shall be king of Britain. For the star, and the fiery 
dragon under it, signifies yourself, and the ray extending towards the 
Gallic coast, portends that you shall have a most potent son, to whose 
power all those kingdoms shall be subject over which the ray reaches.'* 
When Uther became king, " remembering the explanation which Merlin 
had made of the star above-mentioned, [he] commanded two dragons 
to be made of gold, in likeness of the dragon which he had seen at the 
ray of the star. . . . From this time, therefore, he was called Uther 
Pendragon, which in the British tongue signifies the dragon's head." 
— Geoffrey of Monmouth, British History, translated by J. A. Giles, 
" Six Old English Chronicles," Bohn's Antiquarian Library, 219-221. 

62 423. Mysteriously : referring to the mystery of King Arthur's 
birth. 

62 431. Samite : a heavy silk material. 

63 446. Crescent : in the first quarter ; that is, in the period of 
promise. 

66 548. Restless heart. The changing lights reflected from the 
diamond gave it the restless appearance. 

66 552. In the mid might and flourish of his May : at the height 
of his power. 

66 554. Geraint. 

The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur's court, 

A tributary prince of Devon, one 

Of that great Order of the Table Round. 

The Marriage of Geraint, 11. 1-3. 

67 567. Tarriance : delay or lingering. 

68 592. So fine a fear : note the sarcasm. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 125 

69 653. Hern : heron. 

69 653. Slipt : loosened. In the practice of falconry the hunter 
" loosened " the falcon that he might pursue and catch the heron. 

71 715. Strokes of blood : pulse beats. 

72 717. Shook his hair. Sir Gawain, the courteous nephew of the 
King, was given similar characteristics in The Coming of Arthur, 
11. 319-321. 

And Gawain went, and breaking into song 
Sprang out, and follow'd by his flying hair 
Ran like a colt. 

74 798. His own far blood : his relatives, distantly removed. 

76 871. Honor, etc. Note the antithesis. 

77 883. Rough sickness : delirium. See 11. 849, 850. 

77 905. Victim's flowers before he fall. She is comparing herself to 
the animal intended for sacrifice. The ancients decorated such animals 
with garlands. 

79 953. Half my realm beyond the seas. " But to say the sooth, Sir 
Lancelot and his nephews were lords of all France, and of all the lands 
that longed unto France." — Malory, Morte Darthur, XX, 18. 

81 1015. Hark the Phantom of the house : the " banshee " of the 
house of Astolat. In Ireland and in some parts of Scotland " the ban- 
shee is a species of aristocratic fairy, who, in the shape of a little hideous 
old woman, has been known to appear, and heard to sing in a mourn- 
ful supernatural voice under the windows of great houses, to warn the 
family that some were soon to die." — Century Dictionary. 

84 1092. Ghostly man : priest. 

86 1170. Oriel: a room that projects out from the wall of a house. 
It was formerly used as a boudoir. 

86 1170. Summer side : southern side. 

86 1178. Tawnier than her cygnet's. The down of the young swan 
is dark or tan colored. Lancelot says that the swan's neck, compared 
with the Queen's, seems darker than her cygnet's. 

89 1265. Sometime : formerly. 

91 1311. Estate : as a transitive verb this word is rare in modern 
usage. — Murray^s Dictionary. 

91 1316. Worship : honor. 

91 1318. Worshipfully : honorably. 

91 1319. That shrine which then in all the realm was richest : 
Westminster Abbey. 



126 NOTES 

92 1346. Affiance : trust. 

92 1354. Homeless : loneliness caused by the lack of home ties. 

94 1399. King's son. Lancelot was the son of Ban, king of Brittany. 

94 1418. He should die a holy man. When Arthur discovered the 
guilt of Lancelot and the Queen, he decreed that Guinevere should be 
burned at the stake. Lancelot rescued her and took her to his castle, 
" Joyous Gard." There he was besieged by Arthur and Gawain. The 
Pope, interfering, brought about a peace and the return of Guinevere 
to Arthur's court. Lancelot returned to his estate beyond the seas. 
Arthur followed and made war against him, besieging him in his home 
Castle. The King was called home by the rebellion of Modred, who 
desired to overthrow Arthur and become king. After Arthur's death, 
according to Malory, Guinevere retired to the nunnery at Almesbury 
(Amesbury). Lancelot sought her and found her there, but she, refusing 
to go with him, made him promise never again to see her face. Having 
promised, he departed and " rode all that day and all that night in a 
forest, weeping." At last he came to a hermitage and a chapel, where 
dwelt the Bishop of Canterbury and the knight, Sir Bedivere. Lance- 
lot's request to be received as a brother of the order was granted ; so 
he put on the habit and served God with prayers and fastings. Later 
he learned of the Queen's death. After that, refusing food, he soon 
died. His body was, by his request, taken to castle Joyous Gard and 
laid to rest in the body of the quire. — Morte Darthur y XX and XXI. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

95 l Sir Bedivere : 

the first of all his knights 
Knighted by Arthur at his crowning. 

96 28. I pass but shall not die. Merlin had prophesied that Arthur 
should not die. 

Merlin in our time 
Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn 
Tho' man may wound him [the King] that he will not die, 
But pass, again to come ; and then or now 
Utterly smite the heathen underfoot, 
Till these and all men hail him for their king. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 418-423. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 127 

96 30-31. Gawain kilPd in Lancelot's war. According to Malory, 
while Arthur was making war against Lancelot, Gawain received a 
wound at Lancelot's hand which healed. Then came news that Modred, 
having raised a rebellion, had proclaimed himself king. Thereupon 
Arthur and Gawain returned to England, met Modred at Dover, and 
overcame him in battle. After the battle, Gawain was found uncon- 
scious in a boat. He had been injured in the old wound made by 
Lancelot. When Arthur found him, he regained consciousness long 
enough to write a letter to Lancelot urging him to come to Arthur's 
aid. 'And so at the hour of noon, Sir Gawain yielded up the spirit. 
And then the king let inter him in a chapel within Dover castle ; 
and there yet all men may see the skull of him, and the same wound is 
seen that Sir Lancelot gave him in battle." — Malory, Morte Darthur, 
XXI, 2. 

96 35. Isle of rest : " the island- valley of Avilion," 1. 427. 

97 77. Almesbury. The Queen (according to Tennyson) fled to the 

nunnery at Almesbury. Hither the King followed her. When she 

heard his step ring along the gallery leading to her cell, she fell from 

off her seat 

And grovell'd with her face against the floor. 

The King forgave her and blest her. After he went away the nuns 

took her to themselves ; and she 
Still hoping, fearing, " is it yet too late ? " 
Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. 
Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life, 
And for the power of ministration in her, 
And likewise for the high rank she had borne, 
Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess, lived 
For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, past 
To where beyond these voices there is peace. 

Guinevere , 11. 684-692. 

99 135. The voice, etc. " The ocean has frequently been used in 
literature as a symbol of Time and Eternity." — Rowe. 

99 139-142. Voice that shakes the world, and wastes the narrow 
realm . . . and beats, etc. : the sound of the ocean beating on the 
shore and wearing it away. 

100 160. Purport : purpose. 

100 177. Chancel : " the eastern and most sacred portion of a 
church." — Rowe. 



128 NOTES 

100 180. Water: lake. 

101 182. Unsolders : dissolves. 

101 211. Hest : command. 

102 215. Mighty bones : " The bones of the Danish invaders heaped 
up in part of the church building at Hythe are abnormally large-sized, 
and seem to show that ' there were giants in those days.' " — Rowe. 

103 243. Fealty : fidelity to a lord. 
103 248. Lief : beloved. 

103 272. Maiden of the Lake. Queen Bellicent was at the crowning 
of Arthur, and thus describes the Lady of the Lake : 

And near him stood the Lady of the Lake, 
Who knows a subtler magic than his own — 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, 
Whereby to drive the heathen out : a mist 
Of incense curl'd about her, and her face 
Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom ; 
But there was heard among the holy hymns 
A voice as of the waters, for she dwells 
Down in a deep ; calm, whatsoever storms 
May shake the world, and when the surface rolls, 
Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 282-294. 

105 307. Northern morn : the Aurora Borealis. 

105 308, Moving isles of winter : blocks of ice floating in the 
northern sea; icebergs. 

107 366. Three Queens. " One was King Arthur's sister, Queen 
Morgan le Fay ; the other was the Queen of Northgales ; the third was 
the Queen of the Waste Lands." — Malory, Morte Darthur, XXI, 6. 
They were the same as, at his crowning, the 

three fair queens, 
Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright 
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. 

The Coming of Arthur, 11. 275-278. 

107 383. Greaves : the part of the armor that protected the front 
of the leg between the knee and the foot. 
107 383. Cuisses : armor for the thighs. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 129 

108 401. Holy Elders : the three wise men, who, guided by the star, 
came to the child Christ, bringing gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. 
See Matthew ii. 11. 

108 403. Image of the mighty world. " Merlin made the Round 
Table in tokening of the roundness of the world, for by the Round 
Table is the world signified by right." — Malory, Morte Darthur, XIV, 2. 

108 408. This line is quoted from The Coming of Arthur, 1. 508. 

109 435. Fluting a wild carol ere her death. " The musical note of 
swans hath been commended, and that they sing most sweetly before 
their death." — Sir Thomas Browne, Works, II, 517, London, 1836. 
This belief, that formerly was quite common, has long since been 
exploded. 

109 445. From the great deep to the great deep he goes. This is 
a verse from one of Merlin's " riddling triplets" (The Coming of 
Arthur, 1. 410). 



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